by Laurie Farrington
In a recent issue of the CFPS Bulletin (Vol.21, No. 3-4, 1995/1996) the Editor described the CFPS home page on the Internet web site. The home page graphic displayed the deep blue Canadian 1942-43 dollar stamp (Scott A106) known as the destroyer stamp. Question: Was the destroyer on the stamp a Canadian wartime naval ship? Answer (after some research): No. This backgrounder explains why this was so.
In fact, only one Canadian naval ship to date has ever been the subject of a Canadian postal stamp. A pre-launching photo of HMCS La Malbaie served as the model for the 20 cent Canadian corvette stamp of 1942 (Scott A104).
It has been suggested the 1942 Canadian one dollar destroyer stamp was a Canadian Tribal Class destroyer, either HMCS Iroquois or Athabaskan. Indeed, one book - Unlucky Lady: The Life and Death of HMCS Athabaskan 1940-44 by Len Burrow and Emile Beaudoin published in 1982 - includes a photograph of the 1942 $1.00 stamp and describes it as "Iroquois at speed". The construction of both Iroquois and Athabaskan began on the same day in 1940 in the United Kingdom and Iroquois was the first Canadian Tribal to be commissioned in late 1942. After air raids which damaged Iroquois, the unscathed Athabaskan was renamed Iroquois so that launching schedules could remain unchanged.
It has been suggested that possibly the air raids, the resulting delays in construction and the interchange of names between Canada's first two Tribals may have precluded using one of them as the model for the stamp. The $1.00 stamp was issued 1 July, 1942, before either Iroquois or Athabaskan was commissioned, so one could not really expect a photograph of either ship was used as the model of the stamp. So which Tribal Class destroyer was used?
Research at the Canadian Postal Archives, National Archives of Canada, Ottawa, has confirmed that neither Iroquois (G89) , commissioned in November, 1942, nor Athabaskan (G07), commissioned in February 1943, was depicted in the one dollar stamp. HMS Cossack served as the actual model for the one dollar stamp. According to researchers it had been the intention to use a Canadian Tribal Class destroyer in the new 1942 stamp series which reflected Canada's share in the war, with special emphasis on our armed forces, munitions, war supplies, ship-building and agriculture.
However, a photograph of the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Cossack was chosen by the stamp artist. The ship's number "L03" was that of Cossack which had been built in 1938. In February 1940 Cossack achieved fame by entering a Norwegian fiord to rescue British seamen (from ships sunk by the Admiral Graf Spee) held prisoner m the supply ship Altmark. In April she was involved in the second Battle of Narvik and in May the destruction of the Bismark. Finally, on 11 November 1941 the Cossack was torpedoed and sunk in the Atlantic with heavy loss of her crew. Thus when the Canadian $1.00 stamp appeared on 1 July, 1942, the ship which provided the photograph model for the stamp had been sunk eight months earlier. Perhaps naval intelligence had proposed that Cossack should be resurrected in stamp form in 1942 to confuse the enemy.
If Canadian authorities have not favoured the use of HMC Ships on postal stamps, Barbados has been proud to do so. The River Class destroyer HMCS Saguenay, commissioned in 1931 as one of the first ships built for the RCN, was assigned to the America and West Indies Station at the beginning of WW II. Based at Kingston, Jamaica, she patrolled in search of enemy shipping and intercepted one German tanker which scuttled herself. In recognition of naval vessels which have visited and defended Barbados over the years, Barbados has seen fit to use HMCS Saguenay (1939) as the model for a recent 65 cent stamp (Scott 879). In our visual world it is a beautiful stamp and those of us who collect ships on stamps offer thanks to Barbados.
©1996, Laurie Farrington
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