time, like a silent river (1)

Remembering a World at War

Remembrance Day 2013 approaches and I've rounded up a few stories related to World War 2 veterans. I know WW2 need not be my only focus for this small collection but that's where my head and heart have directed me for the last two years, ever since I compiled my father's war time memoirs and stories into a small book ("DAD, WELL DONE") in 2011.

As I've read about World War 2 I've learned - better than in my high school history class - that members of the Allied armed forces, thousands from across our own fair land of Canada (including my father, a volunteer member of the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve and Combined Operations) - were involved, one way or another, in the greatest battle of their lives, one that was the making of some and the unmaking of others. Though time has silently carried most of their stories and voices to a faraway shore, I feel we still owe a bottomless debt to our veterans.

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Today's quote - 

"Unless we heard from them by eleven o'clock that they

were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from

Poland, a state of war would exist between us."

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain,

Sunday, September 3, 1939

Today's story - 

Why my Father Joined the Navy (1)

I've read that many men signed up for their first stint in some branch of the armed forces (e.g., two years 'HO', or 'Hostilities Only') because jobs on Civvie Street were very scarce. They needed the steady pay. Others were motivated by patriotic reasons. They loved their country and would stand and fall in its name. Others were motivated by the uniform alone or the desire to "kick the hell out of Hitler." My father left a few hints, here and there in stories, about why he joined the Navy in 1941.

For example, I read he was "crazy about ships" as a young boy and "used to make boats by folding paper in a certain way and then sail them on the creek." I learned in the foreword to his naval memoirs he was so crazy about ships that, at a young age, he stole "a lovely board" (his mother had purchased it to act as a door sill), and he and a friend (one of the Bucholtz boys), hollowed it out and used it for the main part of their first ship, the Bluenose. He says he got a good spanking for that business.

More important than his love for ships was another matter. In his memoirs he explains:

     After approximately six weeks probationary (at H.M.C.S. Star,
     Hamilton), I was taken on full strength and was made an
     Ordinary Seaman. I always wanted to be a sailor because my
     dad, who passed away when I was ten, had been a sailor and
     my idol was Admiral Lord Nelson. I read and read about him
     and many other navy stories, mostly about war actions.
     Zeebrugge was one. My dad had been a stoker for thirteen years. 

["My father with his father, Roland and sister Myrtle"]

Inspired by famous war stories and deep familial ties, my father's wartime path was seemingly laid out at an early age. Perhaps his father's history with the Royal Navy was the strongest influence. In 1943, as father was transported around the southern-most point of Africa with other members of Combined Operations on their way to D-Day Sicily (July 10) and Italy (September 3), he recalled the following:

     Then the ship left Cape Town on her own and we continued
     around the Cape of Good Hope. I supposed that I was in the
     same waters that my dad had sailed when he served aboard
     a Royal Navy ship as a boy during the Boer War.
     ("DAD, WELL DONE")

On Sunday morning, September 3, 1939, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, with the support of his country's Parliament, declared war on Germany. Three days later, and thousands of miles away in the village of Norwich, Ontario my father celebrated his 19th birthday, the festivities likely affected in some significant way by recent newspaper headlines, e.g., 'ENGLAND AT WAR", since both his parents came from the UK. Eighteen months later, in the spring of '41, he left his job and joined the Navy. It wasn't an abrupt decision, but still a very important one, helped along by a few encouraging words from a local hero.

["Omar Bucholtz, Doug Harrison, circa 1939"]

More to follow.

Photos by GH

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Please click here to read Dad's Navy Days: October 1943 - Homeward Bound (19)