A total of twenty Digbys served with the Royal Canadian Air Force's (RCAF) Eastern Air Command ,(tasked with the vigilance of Canada's Eastern shores) where they provided an excellent role in the anti-submarine service.
Every Digby served with the No.10 (Bomber) Squadron RCAF, unofficially known as the "North Atlantic Squadron". This squadron was formed on 5th September 1939 and was based on the Eastern Coast of Canada and Newfoundland. It was initially equipped with obsolete Westland Wapiti bombers but soon, in early 1940, they received the Digby which, by June 1940 had completely replaced the Wapiti. At least one B-18 (not B-18A or Digby), registered as PB-R, was also bought and assigned to this squadron but it crashed due to poor weather near Gander, in Newfoundland.
The Digbys served with the No.10 Squadron from June 1940 until May 1943 when the squadron was retrained to be re-equipped with the much better and able Consolidated Liberator which also had much better range.
The Digby's first completed mission was a harbour entrance patrol over Bedford Basin, in Nova Scotia, on 3rd July 1940 and their first submarine victory took place on 30th October 1942 when a Digby, registered as "747", based in Gander, sank the German submarine U-520 east of Newfoundland.
In total, the Digbys carried out 11 attacks on submarines. Eventually the Canadian Digbys were either scrapped, converted into the Douglas C-58 transport conversion or used as trainers.
Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_B-18_Bolo
2. http://www.shearwateraviationmuseum.ns.ca/aircraft/digby.htm
3. http://www.ganderairporthistoricalsociety.org/_html_war/Digby742.htm
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._10_Squadron_RCAF
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