a real Liberty boat

In my father's Navy memoirs he says, "In 1944 I was stationed in barracks on a piece of land called "The Spit" at Comox on Vancouver Island, B.C. About a half mile of water separated the spit from Comox and to get to ashore we had to be inspected and travel to Comox on a real Liberty boat."

["I must return to the spit to complete my walk through time"]

Before reading his notes in 2010 I believed he'd spent his war years in Europe, in Sicily and Italy. I was half wrong. In 2012 I walked the beaches part way around the spit. Yes, dad had been there all right. I recognized the landscape from his photos. And two 90-year old women I met in Courtenay (only a few miles from Comox) remembered his red hair and that "he liked to liven things up."

photo from Comox library

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please click here to read 'souvenirs from a faraway time'