I joined the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve (RCNVR) as an ordinary seaman in 1943 because my father had been in the Non-Permanent Active Militia all his life; soldiering was a tradition in our family. His uncle had commanded the 48th Highlanders in the First World War.
I'd sailed a lot and been around boats most of my youth at a cottage in Pictou, N.S., and had been impressed with His Majesty's Canadian Ship (HMCS) Saguenay's annual visit to a festival each summer.
I didn't join my father's outfit, the Signals, as if I got anywhere I thought people would figure it was just my father helping me along, since by then he was a colonel.
My early days in training were easy as I'd been a cadet and eventually a drill sergeant in a Corps at school, which I much enjoyed. It made naval training easier by far.
After training from March 1943 until February 1944, I went to sea as an ordinary seaman in the armed yacht HMCS Vision, out of Digby, N.S, and then anti-submarine escort duty for the Canadian Pacific Railway ferry Princess Helene, Digby to Saint John, N.B., and back.
I sailed one passage in a destroyer from Halifax to Cornwallis, N.S., in a February gale. I thought we were done for when the alarm bells went off due to a short circuit. My only feeling was “well, we're all going to drown for sure, but that's the chance you take. My poor mother – my father away for four years fighting in Italy and I'm drowned at sea!”
During the war I received…
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