For starters, it helps to understand what the
ASDIC is and how it came to be built in Toronto.
The escorts could only dash to each disaster, snap-shoot at the almost invisible enemy, and take swipes at
ASDIC contacts.
Croix drove off one U-boat, Arvida another, and both Amherst and Ottawa attacked
Asdic contacts.
Frank Curry, an
asdic operator aboard HMCS Kamsack left this account of an encounter with white mist during his first tour of duty:
Some of the larger vessels were later outfitted with minesweeping gear,
asdic and depth charges.
In addition to basic seamanship, crews had to be trained in
asdic, electronics, gunnery, torpedoes and tactics in stalking submarines in a vast ocean.
On one of Wanklyn's most daring patrols, in May 1941, the Upholder sank a 4000-ton tanker, but suffered irreparable damage to her
asdic and hydrophones when the convoy's destroyers counterattacked.
Frank Curry, an
ASDIC operator aboard HMCS Kamsack, recalls: "I soon began to dread leaving port and facing another watch: two hours on, four off, day and night deathly tired and deathly ill, retching into a bucket wedged against the set.