Olaf Elmer Berge

Royal Canadian Navy Stoker 1st class Olaf Elmer Berge, son of Egil George and Ida Helena Berge of Vancouver, was killed in action 16 April 1945, age 20 while serving aboard HMCS Esquimalt.

In his honour Berge Inlet was named. Located in Blind Bay, South entrance to Jervis Inlet, Latitude: 49°43'17" , Longitude: 124°10'20" .

HMCS Esquimalt was a diesel-powered Bangor-class minesweeper but operated primarily as an anti-submarine escort. She was torpedoed in the approaches to Halifax, five miles off Chebucto Head, in the morning of 16 April 1945 by a German U-boat U-190, just three weeks before the end of the war. Esquimalt was the last Canadian warship lost to enemy action in the war. Of her seventy-two member crew, only twenty-seven survived.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

www.cornwallismuseum.ca has more information on the Esquimalt including a picture of the memorial window installed in St Georges Protestant church at CFB Cornwallis.