to lieutenant-commander and spent two years at the Royal Canadian Navy's main training base at HMCS Stadacona in Halifax. In 1927, Murray returned to the UK where he did a tour aboard and then spent 1928 studying at the Royal Naval Staff College at Greenwich. During a simulation exercise at the College, Murray broke new ground by planning large convoys—convoys that were regarded by his peers at the time as "almost suicidal". Upon return to Canada in January 1929, Murray was promoted to commander and became the senior naval officer at CFB Esquimalt on Vancouver Island, BC. In notes for a lecture to RMC Kingston in 1932, his continuing interest in the offensive merit of convoys over patrols is evident: "The institution of a system of convoy requires a reorientation of the protective forces. Instead of patrolling the focal areas [where vessels congregate near ports or narrow passages], the group of ships forming the convoy is escorted by an armed escort capable of dealing with any possible scale of attack. This may mean that an increase in the protective force is necessary, but ... the protective force is more definite and concrete than in the patrolling method. In the convoy method ... it is not possible for an enemy to attack without laying herself open to attack and possible destruction"—Admiral Murray. In June 1932, Murray was assigned for a year to Naval Service Headquarters in Ottawa as a Naval Staff Officer before setting back to sea for two years, leading the small fleet of East Coast destroyers from the bridge of his first operational command . At this point, in mid-1934, Murray was appointed to a new position of Senior Naval Officer, Halifax, a position that combined the Commander of the East Coast with the Command of the Naval Dockyard in Halifax. In June 1936 Murray was sent back to the UK to work in the Admiralty Operations Division, and in December 1936 he started his final tour with the Royal Navy serving as executive officer aboard the former battleship , where he participated in the 1937 Coronation Fleet Review. In August 1938, in the middle of a final year at the Imperial Defence College, Murray was promoted to captain, and so it was that, on the eve of World War II, Murray returned to Ottawa as a Captain, and Director of Naval Operations and Training. World War II and