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From: "Peter_McCrae" <>
Subject: PIERS: Desmond William Piers-1/11/2005>CANADIAN--obits, the telegraph.co.uk
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 11:40:51 -0000


Rear-Admiral 'Debby' Piers
(Filed: 15/11/2005)
The Daily Telegraph and the telegraph.co.uk


Rear-Admiral "Debby" Piers, who has died aged 92, was a young Canadian
officer in charge of a slow convoy to Britain which was severely mauled by
U-boats; the episode led to the Royal Navy insisting that the Canadians
withdraw from the North Atlantic for further training.



When the 42 ships of Convoy SC 107 set off in October 1942, Piers's
destroyer Restigouche was the only ship with high-frequency
direction-finding (HF/DF) equipment, which he had scrounged from the US Navy
at Londonderry. Four other corvettes in the escort either had new captains
or were fitted with unreliable radar and short-range ASDIC. When they were
attacked west of Cape Race, Newfoundland, by an estimated 17 U-boats, Piers
used his HF/DF to sweep aggressively around the convoy, driving off most of
the shadowers.

But eight ships were sunk on the first night, and seven more in the next
week. Piers fought fiercely, but when he limped into Liverpool, the Royal
Navy's criticism was harsh.

Senior officers claimed that the Royal Canadian Navy had expanded too
rapidly, had taken on too many tasks and was poorly trained. Admiral Sir Max
Horton's report pointed out that 80 per cent of the convoy's losses had
occurred when it was under Canadian command in the western Atlantic. This
ignored the difficulties under which the convoy had sailed, and singled out
Piers's youth and inexperience. Certainly Piers was young; he was earning
less than his ship's doctor. But he had been senior officer on convoys on at
least seven occasions without losing a ship; and he had been in the North
Atlantic for three years.

The Canadians stuck by Piers, and he left Restigouche in June 1943 with a
reputation as a fine seaman and brilliant tactician. He took a keen interest
in the welfare of his sailors and, in a hard-hitting report of his own,
recommended better equipment, more home leave and regular mail, longer
work-up periods, fewer short-term appointments and better individual
training. The ensuing reforms greatly improved the RCN's fighting
performance.

The citation for his DSC in 1943 declared: "This officer has served
continuously in His Majesty's Canadian destroyers since the commencement of
hostilities. As Senior Officer of Convoy Escort Groups in the North
Atlantic, he has, by his vigorous leadership and aggressive attack, been an
inspiration to those under his command."

Desmond William Piers was born on June 12 1913 into one of the founding
families of Halifax, Nova Scotia. His father called him Desy, which was
transmuted into Debby when he was a baby. In 1932 Piers graduated from the
Royal Military College, Kingston, to become the first cadet to join the
Royal Canadian Navy. He trained at sea in the Royal Navy and returned to
Canada in 1937 as first lieutenant of "Rusty Guts", as Restigouche was
known.

Piers experienced his baptism of fire during the evacuation of France when
Restigouche, under the command of Lieutenant-Commander Horatio Nelson Lay,
was ordered to assist in evacuating the 51st Highland Division's wounded
from St Valery, near Dieppe. Lay asked Piers to send someone ashore to get
in touch with the Highlanders. Looking in his cabin mirror, Piers told
himself: "Piers, you're the one who's going ashore," and replied to himself:
"Aye Aye, Sir." After he had packed binoculars, a signal lamp, chocolate
bars and a bottle of whisky in his golf bag, he was told by Lay: "Piers,
you're a bloody fool. But okay, find out what's going on and signal it
back." Ashore, Piers found Major-General Victor Fortune, who was refusing to
leave because he wanted to hold the perimeter defences to allow more men to
get away, and Piers narrowly avoided accompanying him into captivity. The
propeller of his boat was damaged, and he could make only a half knot out to
where Lay waited for him inshore.

The following year, Piers was the newly-appointed captain of Restigouche
when she struck an uncharted rock in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, while
escorting Prince of Wales, on which Churchill and Roosevelt held their
Atlantic Charter meeting; when she had to put in for repairs, he returned to
Halifax, where he married Janet Macneill.

In late 1943 Piers became training officer at Halifax, where he made
inspirational speeches about the duty of officers in privileged positions
toward their fellow men, while insisting upon very high standards in
exercises. He also helped to thwart German prisoners of war who had escaped
from Bowmanville, Ontario; he controlled the shore side of operations from
the lighthouse at Pointe Maisonnette, New Brunswick, though U-536, which had
come to pick them up, evaded the trap set.

At the Normandy invasion, Piers commanded the new destroyer Algonquin, which
bombarded the shore in support of Canadian and American troops. He also
served in Arctic convoys.

In February 1945 he took part in a mock winter Olympics in northern Russia,
winning the 100 yards dash; his crew played ice hockey against the locals,
which they lost 3-2.

With the return of peace, Piers was second-in-command of the Canadian
aircraft carrier Magnificent, and obtained a pilot's licence; but he also
had to quell a protest by ratings exasperated by his maintenance of tough
wartime discipline. He held influential appointments in headwaters during an
intense period of the Cold War, and was at the centre of decisions
concerning the RCN's commitment in Korea as well as about Canada's maritime
commitment to Nato. In 1952 he was Assistant Chief for Personnel and
Administration to the Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic, then returned to
sea as commanding officer of the cruiser Quebec and as commander of the
First Canadian Escort Squadron.

Piers returned to the Royal Military College as commandant, and in 1960-62
served as Assistant Chief of Naval Staff (Plans) at naval headquarters. He
was chairman of the Canadian Joint Staff and commander of the Canadian
Defence Liaison Staff in Washington.

Piers retired in 1967 to his house, the Quarter Deck, at Chester, Nova
Scotia, where he took up community work. But in 1977 he was appointed Agent
General of Nova Scotia in London, where he promoted the province's use of
tidal energy, publicised the first international gathering of the clans in
the province and helped to organise industrial seminars around the country;
the following year he was made a Freeman of the City of London.

While thoughtful and considerate of his people, Piers set high standards for
himself, and expected the same of others.

At a dinner to commemorate the Battle of the Atlantic two years ago, he
played a harmonica and delighted his friends by dancing to the tunes of his
own shanties.

He gave 12 acres of land to the Nature Conservancy of Canada in order to
ensure public access to one of the last wild headlands of Canada.

"Debby" Piers, who died on November 1, married Janet Macneill, the former
wife of Peter Aitken, second son of Lord Beaverbrook, in 1941: he had been
smitten since first seeing her on stage at Halifax when, aged six, she
played a fairy in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

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