On October 13, 1942 at approximately 9:30 PM, the SS Caribou left North Sydney, Nova Scotia for Port aux Basque, Newfoundland. It would be anything but a typical crossing.
The Caribou had 237 souls on board. Seventy-three were civilians, including 11 children and 118 military personnel, plus a crew of 46.
Prior to departure, knowing the threat German U-boats were, Captain Benjamin Tavenor brought all passengers to deck so they could be made familiar with the lifeboat stations.
Canadian Navy minesweeper, HMCS Grandmere was the Caribou’s escort on the trip. According to the ship’s log, the night was very dark with no moon. The Caribou was reportedly producing a lot of black smoke from it’s stack, which would easily give away the ferry’s position.
When a single navy ship escorted another vessel, according to British naval procedure, it was to follow off the stern. The Grandmere and its crew believed the best place for it to be was in front of the Caribou, rather than behind. The navy’s crew felt they could better detect the sound of a U-boat if it had a clear field in front to probe. Their fears were correct because in Caribou’s path lurked German U-boat, U-69.
According to U-69’s log, they had been searching at 3:21 AM for a three-ship grain convoy bound for Montreal when they spotted the Caribou “belching heavy smoke” 60 KM off Newfoundland.
At 3:40 AM on October 14, all hell broke loose on the Caribou when it was struck by a lone torpedo. U-69 had mistook the ferry and the escorting Grandmere for a 6500-ton passenger freighter and a large 2-stack navy destroyer.
The resulting explosion led passengers to be thrown from their bunks and rushed to the decks where the lifeboat stations were located. Families were looking for each other after the explosion which saw some lifeboats destroyed or become inoperable. Many passengers were forced to jump overboard into the cold waters of the Cabot Strait.
HMCS Grandmere was able to spot U-69 in the dark and turned to ram it, but couldn’t before the U-boat dived. U-69 would head to the area below where passengers were floating in the water as its captain knew they would be safe there.
Grandmere abandoned its hunt and started to pick up survivors at 6:30 AM. Of the 237 aboard the SS Caribou when she left Nova Scotia, 136 had died. Fifty-seven of the dead were military service members and 49 were civilians. The crew of 46 was now only 15. Some entire families had perished.
The SS Caribou’s crossing that night would be the last nighttime crossing during the war for a Newfoundland Ferry. The ship was replaced by the Burgeo and the Canadian Navy ordered its escorts to use a zig-zag pattern on its sailings to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland