Memory Lane PT 5: A positive tone follows many trials

When I recently found a collection of articles written by my mother and father I knew I had found treasure.

The articles are from The Norwich Gazette, my hometown’s weekly paper, and were published in the early 1990s.

In the previous four posts by the same name I’ve shared a few thoughts and feelings about one of them, ‘Down Memory Lane: Navy Days’, written by my father.

Reading and writing about the column has been a meaningful exercise for me. It has added a bit more flesh to the bones of the memories I have of my dad and inspired me to plan a trip to British Columbia to see the banner (a merchant marine insignia with names of the crew of the SS Silver Walnut, including my dad’s) and walk upon some of the same ground my did walked upon when he was 24 years of age.

The tone of the article, about his activities while stationed in barracks in 1944 in Comox, British Columbia, is very positive. He mentions salmon fishing, mucking for oysters, paying baseball, catching herring with a comb of nails, acting as Coxswain on large navy cutters “as soldiers worked the oars” and much more. Even his final sentence (“Got away from the subject of the navy, didn’t I?”) was surely meant to bring a smile to the face of readers.

One of my final thoughts relates to the positive tone.

I’m happy for it. It reflects part of the character that made up the man when he was alive and young and also when he was old.

I’m also aware that the positive notes expressed in 1944 fell on the heels of events that would try the patience and virtue of the strongest of men.


Dad hints at some of his own trials in another column from the 1990s about his time upon the Silver Walnut and in stories found in Volumes I and II of The Canadian Amphibious War 1941 - 1945 (books that contained sailors’ own stories).


“The Walnut chugged along, past Lands End (the SW tip of England, after leaving the Irish Sea in a convoy) and the seaward edge of the Bay of Biscay, which was a very dangerous zone because of German submarines; if we made it through this area there were great hopes of making it all the way (i.e., around the southern tip of Africa and to the Suez Canal).”


The threats and dangers associated with submarines were real. I’m sure my dad knew that.

“Although we Canadian sailors scraped and painted large Maple leaves on landing craft aboard ship, we also became voluntary lookouts. No one was relaxing his guard, as we hoped soon to enter less dangerous waters off West Africa.”

Unfortunately, the Walnut was not in the best of condition for wartime service.

Though the long voyage started relatively well (dad writes, “perhaps out of fear, the Walnut’s engines purred along at about ten knots,” or about 12 mph), the ship experienced some difficulties that put many lives at risk.

So, the positive tone expressed in 1944 doesn’t surface as often in his stories from 1942.

Little wonder.

More to follow.

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Memory Lane Pt 4

Memory Lane PT 3

Memory Lane PT 2

Memory Lane PT 1.

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