The fonds consists of 12 photographs detailing Jack Thorpe's service with the Royal Canadian Navy during World War II. Photographs include Jack's official Navy portrait, ships he served on and working on the ships.
Official portrait of Jack Thorpe in his Navy uniform. Jack Thorpe enlisted in the Royal Canadian Navy Veterans Reserve when he turned 18, at the end of 1941. He served aboard the minesweeper HMCS Bayfield, the Corvette HMCS Orangeville, and HMCS Atholl, a corvette on convoy duty from St. Johns to Londonderry, Ireland.
HMCS Orangeville was a castle class Corvette which operated in the North Atlantic. The role of the corvette was to keep convoy ships in line and fend off any subs that got inside the accompanying screen of destroyers and frigates
Castle class Corvette in a convoy on the North Atlantic. The Royal Canadian Navy was called the sheepdog navy because of its shepherding of more than 25,000 merchant ships across the North Atlantic. Ships traveled in convoys of as many as 150 ships, perhaps strung across 14 square miles of ocean. The convoys were made up of merchant ships carrying supplies, destroyers, frigates, corvettes, and sometimes passenger liners.