In the battle of the Atlantic Canada played a very big job. It's role was to support Great Britain in the war against Germany so that Britain didn't have to worry about starvation, and strength. The problem with this was that German U-Boats were very active at that time and began to explore for ships crossing the Atlantic. In other words it was a battle for control in the Atlantic.When France fell, in June 1940, it allowed German U-Boats to travel further into the Atlantic and destroy allied shipping. In 1939, the Canadian navy consisted of 11 fighting ships and 3,000 men and in 1944 the Royal Canadian navy(RCN) owned over 400 fighting ships and 100,000 men. As the war continued, the allies became more experienced with dealing with U-boat and in 1943 a majority of the German U-Boat were sunk and more ships could pass through to Great Britain. The war was virtually won in 1943, although it continued until 1945 when Germany surrendered. As a result of this battle, in 1945 Canada had the fourth largest navy in the world consisting of 373 fighting ships and over 110,000 members, including 6,500 women. Furthermore, around 2000 RCN soldiers died and 24 vessels were sunk, and the Canadians alone sunk 50 German U-Boats.