Biography

Max Abramson of Calgary was the son of a Romanian immigrant and grew up on the prairies and in northern Ontario. Despite coming of age far from the sea, he began working on fuel tankers that sailed out of Vancouver and then joined the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve in the 1920s. Abramson was an able seaman when the Second World War erupted in 1939 and soon entered active service. He would find himself serving as a senior enlisted seaman in the torpedo room of the destroyer HMCS St. Croix on the dangerous North Atlantic run.

On July 23, 1942, while escorting 33 Allied merchant ships back to Canada after a supply run to Londonderry, Northern Ireland, the convoy came under attack by a large “wolfpack” of German U-boats some 800 kilometres east of Newfoundland. The St. Croix spotted an enemy submarine and quickly closed on it. After three depth charge runs, their target was destroyed.

Petty Officer Abramson’s stalwart service during this difficult convoy crossing and his contributions to the sinking of the German U-boat, our navy’s third successful destruction of an enemy sub during the Second World War’s Battle of the Atlantic, would earn him a Mention in Dispatches later that year. His citation stated: “This torpedo gunner’s mate maintained the depth charges in a high state of efficiency with the result that during prolonged attacks on a U-boat there were no misfires. His efficiency contributed in no small measure to the eventual destruction of a U-boat.”

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Where they participated