Rear Admiral Leonard Warren Murray, CB, CBE (22 June 1896 – 25 November 1971) was an officer in the Royal Canadian Navy who played a central role in the Battle of the Atlantic, and was the only Canadian to command an Allied theatre of operations during World War II.
Murray was in the inaugural cohort at the Royal Naval College of Canada, and entered naval service in 1913 on the British armoured cruiser . He served as a junior officer throughout World War I on Canadian and British ships, and witnessed the surrender of the German fleet at Scapa Flow. Between the wars, at a time when the Canadian navy had few ships of its own, Murray moved steadily up the ranks serving on British ships and studying at the Royal Naval Staff College in the United Kingdom. He commanded the Canadian destroyer , as well as naval bases on Canada's east and west coasts.
Commencing his World War II service as Deputy Chief of Naval Staff, Murray played a key role in negotiations with the United States and the UK on rapidly expanding the Canadian Navy. He was a founding member of the Permanent Joint Board on Defence and helped negotiate the destroyers-for-bases deal. In late 1940, Murray was placed in command of a fleet of five Canadian ships dispatched to defend the UK. From there, he was reassigned to command positions on Canada's east coast, initially in command of the Newfoundland Escort Force, then Commanding Officer Atlantic Coast. Following the Atlantic Convoy Conference of March 1943, Murray was appointed Commander-in-Chief, Canadian Northwest Atlantic, and successfully led Canadian, British, American and other Allied naval and air forces to victory in the Battle of the Atlantic.
Murray was controversially blamed for allowing sailors to take shore leave in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on VE Day, a decision that is believed to have contributed to the Halifax Riot of 7–8 May 1945. Following the riot, Murray retired from the Royal Canadian Navy and moved to the UK, where he practiced law and became active in local politics.
Early years Leonard Warren Murray was born at Granton, Nova Scotia on 22 June 1896. His father, Simon Dickson Murray (1859–1936), was a mid-level manager in various enterprises, and managed the Acadia Coal Company's pier in Pictou Landing from 1903 to the early 1920s.Cameron, pp. 10–13 His mother was Jane Falconer (1868–1968)—a direct descendant of the Scottish immigrants who travelled to Pictou County aboard in 1773. At 14 years of age, Murray left Pictou Academy to join the first intake of 21 recruits into the Royal Naval College of Canada in Halifax, which had just been created by the Naval Service Act of 4 May 1910.Tucker p. 140 Life for the recruits was difficult. In his own words:
"The first winter at the naval college was absolute hell, we had no uniforms, we arrived in what we stood up in and had to send home for further clothing. A case of measles broke out very shortly and we were quarantined, and the only time we got out of the college was when we went to the skating rink to play hockey; and that was a great relief." – Admiral Murray.Taped interview with Murray at National Defence HQ in May 1970, transcribed in Library and Archives of Canada, Admiral Murray papers, Collection MG30 E207.
Immediately after graduating in January 1913,Original graduation certificate in Library and Archives of Canada, Admiral Murray papers, Collection MG30 E207 Murray went to sea as a midshipman on the Royal Navy armoured cruiser ,Naval Personnel records of Leonard Murray in Library and Archives Canada AE42-14-29 and 60-M-11 Vol 3. protecting British interests in the Mexican Revolution, and then in the armoured cruiser . This was a tense moment for Canada's fledgling navy: the Government of Robert Borden favoured a policy of providing ships and sailors to the British navy, but was blocked by the opposition led by Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who advocated for Canada to have its own navy.
World War I
On 14 August 1914, immediately following the outbreak of World War I, Murray was assigned to the protected cruiser , the largest ship in the Royal Canadian Navy at that time. Niobe mostly patrolled the coastal waters from New York to Newfoundland, and prevented 38 German merchant ships from leaving the neutral port of New York.Ronald p. 57 Four of Murray's Naval College classmates were sent to the Royal Navy armoured cruiser , and were killed off the coast of South America on 1 November 1914 at the Battle of Coronel—becoming the first Canadian-service casualties of World War I.Tucker, p. 221
After Niobe was decommissioned in July 1915, Murray was promoted to acting sub-lieutenant on 1 December 1915, and served briefly as Flotilla Gunnery Officer in the patrol ship , before being transferred as sub-lieutenant to the protected cruiser on Canada's West Coast. This provided Murray with valuable experience on Canada's Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and on three of Canada's six ships in the early years of World War I. He spent the last two years of World War I as Assistant Navigating Officer in the armoured cruiser , from January 1917 as lieutenant, where he helped plan troop convoys across the Atlantic that avoided the threat from German U-boats. This proved to be invaluable experience for the Battle of the Atlantic more than 20 years later.Personal correspondence between Murray and Lt Commander (USN) Robert Born, 18 November 1969 Murray ended World War I in the North Sea aboard the battleship , and witnessed the surrender of the German fleet at Scapa Flow.Edwards, p. 160
Between the wars After World War I, Murray served briefly in flotilla leader ,Although this does not appear in his RCN service record, the Murray papers at LAC contain his navigation notes from a voyage in late 1919, and a period of service from 31 October to 1 December 1919 is quoted in a letter of 1924 applying for a civilian Master's license. According to his RCN service record, Murray was assigned to from 1 April 1919 to 30 June 1919, to HMS Calcutta from 1 July 1919 to 15 September 1919, and to HMS Crescent from 16 September 1919 to 1 December 1919 and then in the newly commissioned light cruiser under the distinguished British Captain Percy Noble, from whom Murray learned the basic skills of command, and who eighteen years later served opposite Murray on the receiving end of the convoys as Commander-in-Chief, Western Approaches Command. Following a short tour aboard the cruiser , Murray was assigned to the light cruiser as Navigation Officer, until Aurora was decommissioned in July 1922 due to naval budget cuts. With the downsizing of the Royal Canadian Navy,By 1922 the RCN was reduced to 366 men and two destroyers, see Schull p. 7 and given his recent marriage to Jean Chaplin Scott in Westmount, Quebec on 10 October 1921, Murray considered a civilian career—and in 1924 qualified as master of a foreign-going vessel.Edwards, p. 165 In the end, however, Murray decided to remain with the armed forces, and he joined many of his colleagues alternating between shore assignments as a training officer with the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve, and serving aboard Royal Navy vessels.
Thus it was that, as a Canadian, Murray served on the dreadnought battleship (during a tour in 1923 in Turkey he befriended Lord Louis Mountbatten),Cameron, p. 34. and the battleship , where he served as Assistant to the Master of the Fleet. Understandably, this provided Murray and his peers, including Percy W. Nelles, with a distinct anglophile and Royal Navy bias.Glover, pp. 82–83Close ties to the Royal Navy were important for gaining the trust that, eventually, persuaded the UK to hand over convoy responsibility to Canada, and ultimately to Murray. See German, p. 90 In January 1925, Murray was promoted to lieutenant-commander and spent two years at the Royal Canadian Navy's main training base at HMCS Stadacona in Halifax. He returned to the UK in 1927, for a tour aboard the battlecruiser , and then he spent 1928 studying at the Royal Naval Staff College at Greenwich. During a simulation exercise at the college, Murray broke new ground by planning large convoys—convoys that were regarded by his peers at the time as "almost suicidal".Edwards, p. 168. Upon return to Canada in January 1929, Murray was promoted to commander and became the senior naval officer at CFB Esquimalt on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. In notes for a 1932 lecture to Royal Military College at Kingston, Ontario, his continuing interest in the offensive merit of convoys over patrols is evident:
"The institution of a system of convoy requires a reorientation of the protective forces. Instead of patrolling the focal areas [where vessels congregate near ports or narrow passages], the group of ships forming the convoy is escorted by an armed escort capable of dealing with any possible scale of attack. This may mean that an increase in the protective force is necessary, but ... the protective force is more definite and concrete than in the patrolling method. In the convoy method ... it is not possible for an enemy to attack without laying herself open to attack and possible destruction"—Admiral Murray.Lecture notes from 1932, in Library and Archives of Canada, Admiral Murray papers, Collection MG30 E207.
In June 1932, Murray was assigned for a year to Naval Service Headquarters in Ottawa as a Naval Staff Officer before setting back to sea for two years, leading the small fleet of East Coast destroyers from the bridge of his first operational command, the new destroyer .Murray's Standing Orders and navigation records for this command are held in Library and Archives of Canada, Admiral Murray papers, Collection MG30 E207. At this point, in mid-1934, Murray was appointed to a new position of Senior Naval Officer, Halifax, a position that combined the Commander of the East Coast with the Command of the Naval Dockyard in Halifax. In June 1936 Murray was sent back to the UK to work in the Admiralty Operations Division, and in December 1936 he started his final tour with the Royal Navy serving as executive officer aboard the former battleship , where he participated in the 1937 Coronation Fleet Review.The orders and arrangements for the Coronation Fleet review are in Library and Archives of Canada, Admiral Murray papers, Collection MG30 E207. Murray was admitted to the Imperial Defence College in 1938, during which time he was promoted to captain. Upon graduation, and on the eve of World War II, Murray returned to Ottawa as a captain, and Director of Naval Operations and Training.
World War II and the Battle of the Atlantic
1939–1942 At the outbreak of World War II, Murray was appointed Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff. From this HQ position, he played a key role in the build-up of the Navy from a starting point of six destroyers,Sarty, p. 166 to its eventual wartime strength of approximately 332 vessels. This effort included crossing Canada to recruit retired Royal Navy officers back into the Royal Canadian Navy, and advocating for the "small-ship anti-submarine" investment strategy that was eventually so successful.Lund (1982), p. 140
Murray was also central to negotiations with the US and the UK. In March 1940 he made a secret visit to the UK to negotiate the construction of destroyers in the UK for the Royal Canadian Navy, and after returning to Canada he attended the first US-Canada Chiefs of Staff meetings leading up to the Ogdensburg Agreement. From there, Murray became a founding member of the Permanent Joint Board on Defence (PJBD). It was while he was working for the PJBD that he renewed his friendship with Commander James "Chummy" Prentice, who was shortly thereafter assigned the position of Senior Officer, Canadian Corvettes under Murray. Both men would work closely together until the spring of 1944.Milner, p. 104