Prince Henry Song

DESCRIPTION: "Sing, sing, Prince Henry's side, The Jimmy looks on her with pride," because the ship is extremely clean. The officers are proud of the fact that "She's a tiddley ship," "For when she's in motion, She's the pride of the ocean."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1979 (Hopkins-SongsFromTheFrontAndRear)
KEYWORDS: ship nonballad
FOUND IN: Canada
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Hopkins-SongsFromTheFrontAndRear, p. 44, "Prince Henry Song" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #29417
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "She's a Tiddley Ship" (tune)
cf. "A Band of Banshee Airmen" (lyrics, tune)
NOTES [472 words]: Hopkins-SongsFromTheFrontAndRear's notes talk about the one major action the Prince Henry engaged in as a warship, but the song fragment itself mentions none of that, and includes no indication of date. Hers was a complicated history. Canada had very little navy between the World Wars, especially of true seagoing ships (the small ships her shipyards were able to build, minesweepers and corvettes, were intended to stay close to land, although the corvettes in particular eventually ended up in convoy export). When she needed a larger ship, she had to get it from Britain.
Once World War II started, the Canadians wanted more ships -- but the British needed every ship they had and couldn't spare any. The Canadians hoped to trade some of their small ships for something bigger. "In March 1940 those hopes were dashed. The barter scheme collapsed because an equitable exchange could not be found. The British softened the blow by allowing Canada to let contracts for two Tribals [large destroyers] in British yarts, with two more to follow in 1941. In the meantime, the RCN [Royal Canadian Navy] had to fill the void with the three small liners it had purchased for conversion to armed merchant cruisers, Prince Henry, Prince David, and Prince Robert. These 6000-ton vessels, with a speed of 22 knots and a range of 6000 miles, were the most powerful ships in the RCN until the first Tribal entered service in 1943" (Milner, p. 83).
That statement requires some footnotes. The "Princes" were the largest ships in the Canadian navy, but I doubt anyone would have traded them for the smaller but much more capable destroyers of the "River" class such as the Saguenay (for which see "The Saguenay Song"); the destroyers had torpedoes as well as guns, were much faster, and could fight submarines. As a result, the destroyers were constantly busy, while the "Princes" mostly did odd jobs: "The Prince ships served far and wide in the early years of the war. They patrolled the Pacific, captured several German merchant ships, escorted the ill-fated Canadian contingent to Hong Kong, supported operations against the Japanese in the Aleutian Islands, and served in the Caribbean" (Milner, p. 83).
But they didn't stay in that role for long. Once it came time to invade France, they were converted once again, to troopships: "[T]wo of the Princes, David and Henry, were converted to assault ships" (Milner, p. 130) and participated in the landings in Normandy (Bercuson, p 204; he labels them "infantry landing ships").
Given that the Canadians had such a small pre-war navy (there were only 1900 professional navy men, according to Bercuson, p. 11), it's no surprise that they were short of officers. Which perhaps helps explain why the officers of Prince Henry apparently confused cleanliness with effectiveness. - RBW
Bibliography

Bercuson: David J. Bercuson, Maple Leaf Against the Axis: Canada's Second World War, 1995 (I use the 2004 Red Deer Press edition)
Milner: Marc Milner, Canada's Navy: The First Century, University of Toronto Press, 1999

Last updated in version 5.1
File: Hopk044

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