Cardboard guns. Crazy. Hope at least they had sonar and depth charges

I don't know if they did. He passed in 1985. I only recall the story of the cardboard guns. And this is the only photo I have of him serving.

If he was in a corvette, I would think not. They were lightly armed. They did have front (and maybe rear) cannons for surface encounter, but their primary purpose was as a U-boat hunter.

I believe there were ships at the start of the war that employed fake guns, but I think that was before the corvettes came into service

Ok thanks for the info! Wouldn't 1941 be near the start of our efforts across the Atlantic? Edit: as you can see this is dated 1941 on the photo.

No. WW2 began in 1939 for most combatants. By 1941 corvettes would have been in service.

Right. But to to my knowledge, North America didn’t enter significantly until 1941. And that was the near peak of U-boats and their massive destuction of the USA and Canadian Navies.

The US didn't enter until 1941. Canada declared war in Sept 1939. In the early part of the war U-boats dominated the North Atlantic, blockading the UK. The Allied response was to organize large convoys and protect them with small ships like the corvette, that were specifically made to hunt substances. The corvette and the new of the Canadian Navy were instrumental at that.

The U-boat threat would probably have been at its peak sometime in 1941 or 1942, but convoys and the development of increasingly effective antisubmarine warfare turned the tide soon after.

Right, ok. Thank you. Does what you know compromise my understanding of the events and this particular situation? I mean, this was straight from my grandfather. And he was lucky to survive.

I think the substance of what you have is correct, except about the corvette's armaments.. if your grandfather served on a ship before this one, it may have had a fake gun

Ok, thank you again! It seems feasible to me that this all may well have been the case for his particular ship. I imagine that you'd have a mix of older and newer ships at that point. And literally everything was put into service as everything was getting wiped out in those years.