We Remember - HMCS Galiano

Hullo. Every Remembrance Day, we try to tell the a local story about a local war hero. Today's story is beary sad, cause it's not just one hero. Navy Beanie chose this story because of its nautical theme.

The Story of HMCS Galiano

Everyone's heard the Gordon Lightfoot song about the Edmund Fitzgerald? Well... here on the west coast, we had something similar.

In 1913, a new ship was constructed at the Dublin Dockyards in Ireland. She was eventually acquired by the Canadian government in February 1914 to serve as a federal fisheries patrol vessel along the west coast. She was christened CGS Galiano (CGS = Canadian Government Ship) and her sister ship was christened the CGS Malaspina.

HMCS Galiano

The Galiano's first, and only commander was Lt. Robert Mayes Pope. He had been born in England and arrived on the west coast of BC around 1903. He had already served on sailing ships out of Great Britain to India, and was an officer aboard the steamers of the East India Company. He was also an officer in the Cape service from England to Africa. Later he served as a lieutenant on a cruiser in the British Navy. After he arrived in BC, he made several voyages with the Empress of Japan as Third Officer. Finally, he was made commander of the Galiano in 1914. It would be his last posting.

With the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the Galiano and Malaspina alternated between civic and military duties along the west coast. But then, on 15 December 1917, the Galiano was commissioned into the Royal Canadian Navy and renamed HMCS (His Majesty's Canadian Ship) Galiano.

Less than a year later, in late October, 1918, the Galiano had just returned to base in Esquimault after a resupply mission to the Queen Charlotte Islands (now known as Haida Gwaii). The Galiano needed repairs to her boiler and had a problem with the main bearing on the tail shaft of her single screw propeller. Her repairs never happened. Her sister ship, the Malaspina, had made a "hard" landing against a dock and was in the shipyard to repair a crumpled bow. The lighthouse and wireless (radio) station on Triangle Island (a remote island off the northwestern tip of Vancouver Island) was in desperate need of gasoline for their wireless (radio) setup and so the Galiano was sent with supplies to Triangle Island. The thought was that she would deliver those supplies, as well as some other supplies to a wireless (radio) station on the southern tip of the Charlottes and then get her repairs done in Prince Rupert. It would be a fateful mission.

Several of her regular crew (8 or 9) were unable to sail from the base in Esquimalt, as they were sick with the 1918 flu pandemic. Several crew members from the Malaspina and other ships, or dockyard ratings filled the ship's empty slots. The ship eventually sailed with 39 crew (several of whom were "green" and not familiar with the ship) and one female passenger who was to replace the cook/housekeeper on Triangle Island.

The crew of the HMCS Galiano
(George Douglas Stanley Bate - see below - is kneeling in the front row, 2nd from the right.)

The Sinking of HMCS Galiano

After delivering the supplies on Triangle Island, the Galiano set out towards the Queen Charlotte Islands at 5 pm on 29 October 1918. She had dropped off the female passenger and picked up another, Miss Emily (Emma) Mary Brunton.  Emily had been hired as a cook and housekeeper for the Triangle Island station in 1916. This would be her first trip off the barren and windswept island in 18 months.

After a week of hurricane force, 110 knot winds and 45 foot seas, the winds had subsided to 70 knots and 30 foot seas. Other ships said it was the worst sea conditions they had ever experienced in the area.

At 3 am the next morning, the Galiano sent out a solitary distress signal - "Holds full of water send help!" She was thought to be within visual range of the Cape St. James lighthouse (153 km from Triangle Island) at the far southern tip of the Charlottes. The Galiano was never heard from again. 

The Wreckage of HMCS Galiano

Rescue ships set out the next morning. Over the next few days, several bodies were recovered, and a few pieces of the ship. It was obvious that the ship had sank in the heavy seas.

The Galiano was the Royal Canadian Navy's only wartime loss during the First World War and she sank 12 days before the Armistice was declared.

The Victoria Daily Colonists noted on November 03, 1918:

The men of GALIANO died in the performance of duty. 

They have ventured into rough places and taken their chance many a time before.

They did it without a flourish of trumpets. This time they took a chance and lost.

The wreckage of the Galiano has never been found.

HMCS Galiano - George Douglas Stanley Bate

Four of the crewmembers were from the Nanaimo area, but we will follow the story of one of them - George Douglas Stanley Bate, one of the ship's cooks.

Douglas, as he was known, was born in Nanaimo on 13 March 1895 to William Charles Bate, an engineer, and his wife Edna (nee Jones). Doug was the third of six children and the only one to die during the wars. Doug's father passed away in 1903 at the age of 32.

As a young man, Doug learned candy making as a trade in Nanaimo. After 1911, his family moved to New Westminster where he got a job making sweets. Doug was apparently an amateur actor and director of the New Westminster Dramatic Society.

Doug enlisted with the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve on in February 1918. By April 1918, aged 23, Doug had been assigned to the HMCS Galiano where he served as Ship's Cook, 3rd Class.

George Douglas Stanley Bate

Doug was 23 years old but would never make it back home. He perished aboard the Galiano and his body was never recovered. Douglas is commemorated on the Ross Bay Cemetery memorial which has the names of all those lost aboard the HMCS Galiano.

Ross Bay Cemetery memorial with George D.S. Bate's name

After his death, Doug's mother (Edna Bate) received a Memorial Cross, the Victory Medal, and the British War Medal. Edna passed away in Ladysmith in the 1950s, well into her 80s.

The Lost Crew of HMCS Galiano

Ross Bay Cemetery Memorial to the crew of the HMCS Galiano

Aird, James - Able Seaman
Aitken, Peter - Able Seaman (mother lived in Nanaimo)
Bate, George Douglas - Ship’s Cook 3rd Class (from Nanaimo)
Bentley, William James - Leading Seaman
Dobbyn, Matthew - Stoker 1st Class (from Nanaimo)
Ebbs, Wilfred Arthur - Able Seaman
Edmonds, Peter Whitton - Engine Room Artificer 4th Class 
Gilbert, Joseph - Boatswain
Greenshields, Frank - Chief Artificer Engineer
Hanbury, Charles Lambert - Stoker 1st Class
Hume, Arthur Edward - Stoker 1st Class
Jewkes, Arthur Lawson - Able Seaman
Jones, Alan Owen - Able Seaman
Kaneen, Thomas Freer - Leading Stoker
King, William Jones - Able Seaman
Maclean, Neil - Leading Seaman
McGuffin, Hudson - Ordinary Seaman
Mcleod, Roderick - boy
Mercer, Harold - Engine Room Artificer 4th Class
Munro, Alexander Eric Paul - Leading Seaman
Musty, George Henry - Stoker 1st Class
Neary, Michael John - Wireless Telegraph Operator 3rd Class
Newton, Roy Ernest - boy
Ordano, Austin Rodolfe - Able Seaman
Peters, Frederick George - boy
Poere, Edward Christopher - Leading Seaman
Pope, Robert Mayes - Lieutenant (Commander)
Price, Noel George - Leading Stoker
Reeves, Alfred James - Ship’s Cook 1st Class
Stafford, William John - Able Seaman
Stirrup, Harold - Stoker 2nd Class
Tabone, Michael - Victualling Petty Officer
Therriault, William Garfield - Stoker 2nd Class
Vinicombe, James - Chief Petty Officer
Wallace, William - boy
Watson, Philip Alexander - Engine Room Artificer 2nd Class
Whitworth, Frederick - Leading Stoker
Williamson, George - Victualling Petty Officer
Young, John - Stoker 1st Class (mother lives in Nanaimo)

Brunton, Emma Mary - Civilian confirmed onboard. Emma's name is not inscribed on the Ross Bay Cemetery memorial, nor does she have a death registration in the BC databases.