Park ships were merchant steamships constructed for the Canadian Merchant Navy during the Second World War. Park ships and Fort ships (built in Canada for operation by the British) were the Canadian equivalent of the American Liberty ships. All three shared a similar design by J. L. Thompson and Sons of Sunderland, England. Fort ships had a triple expansion steam engine and a single screw propeller. While Fort ships were transferred to the British government, the Park ships were those employed by the Canadian government. The ships were named after local and national parks of Canada. A few Park ships were launched as Camp ships, named after Canadian military camps, but were quickly renamed after parks. was the first Park ship lost to enemy attack, in the Indian Ocean after a torpedo attack from U-177 south of Durban, South Africa.
The Allied merchant fleet suffered significant losses in the early years of the Battle of the Atlantic as a result of U-boat attacks. The Park Steamship Company was created by the Canadian government on April 8, 1942, to oversee construction of a merchant fleet to help replace the lost vessels and to administer the movement of materiel. This was part of a coordinated Allied effort that saw the construction of British, American and Canadian merchant ships using a common class of vessel known as the North Sands class (named after a beach near the J. L. Thompson yard on the River Wear).
Over the next three years, the company ordered approximately 160 bulk cargo ships and 20 tankers that would all fly the Canadian flag. Ships at 10,000 tons deadweight were known as Park class. 43 smaller vessels at a nominal 4,700 tons were first designated Grey class, but were later called Park ships as well, and were commonly known as 4700-tonner Park ships. All the ships were powered by coal-driven steam engines. All but two vessels launched were named for federal, provincial or municipal parks in Canada. Some were armed with bow guns and anti-torpedo nets. Two of the Park ships were lost to natural hazards and four were lost due to enemy action. One, , built at the Pictou Shipyard in Pictou, Nova Scotia was one of two Allied ships destroyed by enemy action in the North Sea in the last hour of the war in Europe on 7 May 1945.
At the same time, Canada produced 90 additional vessels for the American government which were turned over to the British Merchant Navy under a lend-lease agreement. Built to the same design but designed to burn oil instead of coal, these vessels were known as Fort ships, as they took their names from forts. Notable ships of this type included , , and . Like many of the Fort ships, Fort Charlotte was launched as a Park. The hulls of the Park ships were riveted, not welded.
After the war, by 1948, all of the Fort ships had been sold to private companies. The new owners gave the ships new names.
Park ships were armed. There were merchant seamen gunners. Also many British and Canadian merchantmen carried naval gunners as Defensively equipped merchant ship (DEMS). The guns were operated by Royal Navy or Royal Artillery Maritime Regiment personnel with the civilian crews trained to aid in passing ammunition and loading. The American ships carried Naval Armed Guard gunners. Merchant seamen crewed the merchant ships of the British Merchant Navy which kept the United Kingdom supplied with raw materials, arms, ammunition, fuel, food and all of the necessities of a nation at war throughout World War II literally enabling the country to defend itself. In doing this they sustained a considerably greater casualty rate than almost every branch of the armed services and suffered great hardship. Seamen were aged from fourteen through to their late seventies. The lost are remembered in the Royal Canadian Naval Ships Memorial Monument in Spencer Smith Park in Burlington, Ontario.
The shipbuilding program was not easy to implement as Canada had only four operational shipyards with nine berths in 1940. By 1943, there were six additional shipyards and a total of 38 berths. These were all private shipyards located across Canada - on the East Coast at Pictou and Saint John; in Montreal, Sorel and Lauzon on the St. Lawrence River, at Collingwood on the Georgian Bay, and Victoria, Vancouver and Prince Rupert on the Pacific Coast. Only the yards at Montreal, Saint John, Victoria and Collingwood existed before the war. By 1945, there were 57,000 men and women employed in building or repairing merchant ships in Canada and several thousand more building ships for the Royal Canadian Navy.
The table shows the name of the shipyard and city, and the number of vessels launched by each yard. Eventually thousands of Canadians and British would serve aboard these Canadian Merchant Navy ships.
Tankers for World War II, converted to cargo ships after the war:
Park ships sank or damaged: