To honour the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Sea King helicopter and in honour of Shawn Cafferky who died suddenly several years ago, the Centre for Foreign Policy Studies has decided to issue a second edition of this book. The second edition includes a Foreword by Dr. David Zimmerman and an Introduction to the Second Edition by Colonel (Retired) John Orr. Canadian naval aviation during the Second World War and post-war period has, for the most part, been ignored in the research and writing about Canadian military history. This is especially true in the case of the development and adoption of ship-borne helicopters. This book is an examination of the origins of rotary-wing aircraft and the development of the helicopter carrying destroyer escort from the Canadian perspective. The emergence of the helicopter-carrying destroyer can be traced to the fortunes of the Royal Canadian Navy in its battle for the convoys during 1942, and in its drive to obtain a balanced fleet. Bringing that idea to fruition, however, was a lengthy and sometimes acrimonious process which was further complicated by competing national and service interests, and limited budgets. In the end, the navy was able to convince both the government and the air force of the merits of helicopters for anti-submarine warfare, the navy’s raison d’être in post-war era. The navy was also able to overcome the huge challenges of developing new equipment and procedures to land rotary-wing aircraft on the deck of ship at sea. Convincing the government and air force was neither easy nor quick, and developing the technology was a unique challenge. These processes have not been adequately examined in the existing literature and this study seeks to correct that omission.

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