The Heart Of Oak Series#19: HMCS KITCHENER Traditional Geocache
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The Heart Of Oak Series#19: HMCS KITCHENER
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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This is the nineteenth cache of a series of caches called "The Heart Of Oak Series". These caches are named after ships that have connections to the greater Saint John Area, either built here at the Saint John Shipbuilding Yard, or that have ties to areas around Saint John.
This cache is named after a ship that does not have any connections to Saint John, but since I visit Kitchener often and thought why not add to the series.
HMCS Kitchener (K225) was a Royal Canadian Navy Flower-class corvette which took part in convoy escort duties during World War II. The vessel was originally named HMCS Vancouver (K225) but was renamed in November 1941 before the ship was launched.
Following commissioning in Quebec City in June 1942 the ship transferred to Halifax, arriving on 16 July, and spent the next six weeks at Pictou, Nova Scotia working up.
She played the fictional HMCS Donnacona in the film Corvette K-225, released in 1943, the filming probably done during this unusually long working up period. In September she was briefly assigned to the Western Atlantic Escort Force (WLEF) before being reassigned as an escort for Operation Torch, the landings in North Africa. She sailed to Derry, arriving on 3 November and spent the next few months escorting convoys between the UK and the Mediterranean before returning to Canada in April 1943 as an escort for convoy ONS.2.
She was briefly assigned to the Western Support Force but in June was reassigned to Escort Group C-5 of the Mid-Ocean Escort Force where she made three round trips to Derry. An extensive refit in Liverpool, Nova Scotia was completed on 28 January 1944 and after two weeks working up in Bermuda the ship transferred to Milford Haven, Wales for escort duties associated with Operation Neptune.
Kitchener was the only Canadian corvette to participate in the 6 June D-Day invasion of Normandy, escorting the second wave of American infantry which landed at around 11 am on Omaha Beach, then assigned as picket ship for the heavy cruiser USS Augusta which was acting as General Omar Bradley's command ship. From August until May 1945 she was a member of Escort Group 41 based at Plymouth, England, after which she returned to Canada. The ship was decommissioned at Sorel-Tracy, Quebec in July 1945 and broken up in 1949.
This cache is designed for those who need instant gratification for those arriving on Long Island in the hunt for the other caches on the island. It along with the HMCS BARRIE cache are located on the island because it is an adventure to get to these cities, so I made it an adventure to grab these caches!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Gerr