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Photographs of
Admiral Leonard Murray
Memorial

1896 – 1971

Officially unveiled 14 October 2004

Pictou
Pictou County
Nova Scotia

Located beside the traffic circle at the entrance to Pictou

GPS location:   45°40'49"N   62°43'38"W

The above photographs were taken on 4 October 2005.

50¢ stamp commemorating the 60th anniversary of the end of the Battle of the Atlantic,
officially unveiled 1 May 2005 at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, Halifax.
2 500 000 of these stamps were printed.

The Battle of the Atlantic

The Battle of the Atlantic which lasted 2,075 days, was the longest campaign of the Second World War. It pitted Allied navies against German and Italian naval forces, especially submarines, in a battle to safeguard the essential flow of shipping between North America and Europe.

On any given day 125 merchant vessels were sailing in convoy across the North Atlantic. It was during these treacherous, stormy crossings that Canada's navy matured and won the mantle of a professional service. Our navy escorted 25,343 merchant vessels across the Atlantic. These ships carried 181,643,180 tons of cargo to Europe – the equivalent of eleven lines of railway freight cars, each stretching from Vancouver to Halifax. Without these supplies, the war effort would have collapsed.

Although it was largely unprepared for war in 1939, Canada's navy grew at an unparalleled rate, eventually providing 47 percent of all convoy escorts. Rear Admiral Leonard Murray, Commander-in-Chief North-West Atlantic, who directed convoy battles from Halifax would become the only Canadian to hold an Allied theatre command during the war...

— From the Battle of Atlantic Memorial Service pamphlet
Online source: The Battle of the Atlantic
    http://www.thewrens.com/boatantic_hist.html

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