Dad's Navy Days: December, 1943 - All for the love of a good ship? (22)

"All the girls love a sailor,

all the girls love a tar,

For there's something about a sailor,

when you know what sailors are,

Bright and breezy, free and easy..."

A song heard often in British pubs,

as remembered by Doug Harrison, WW2

["Doug Harrison with mother Alice, circa 1945 - 50"]

My father returned to Norwich, his hometown in Ontario, by way of Halifax in the second week of December, seventy years ago, after toiling in various World War II battle theatres (including the three D-Days in North Africa, Sicily and Italy) during the years 1941-1943. Once home he filled his leave with "mostly wine, women and song."

From my study of family history I believe he shared his affections - while on leave, and for some time later -  almost equally between three women, i.e., his mother and two girlfriends. About his mother he says:

     ...with 52 days of leave we would have time to
     tell our stories around the kitchen table on Spring
     Street. It was good to be home, the home that
     mother built. [pg. 106, "DAD, WELL DONE"] 

["Edith Catton, outside her family home, circa 1943"]

["Doug with Elizabeth Ann McLauchlin, April, 1944"]

Though he says nothing in his memoirs about his time with his girlfriends during leave, a bit of the story comes out at a later date, as he eventually had to choose one over the other (several hearts were broken and lives drastically changed during that painful process), but that being said, before the leave was over he left all three women behind because preparations had been made to travel to the west coast of Canada to take part in a Combined Operations Training School situated in Comox, Vancouver Island. The war, maybe even one clunker of a ship, won the battle for father's heart in the winter of '43.

Knowing what I do now about Halifax during those times, I would not be at all surprised if my father prepared to return to war just a day or two after landing in that city on December 6.

In The Canadians at War 1939/45 Volume 1 I read the following:

     In 1941 British rear Adm. S. S. Bonham-Carter called
     (Halifax) "probably the most important port in the world."
     That same year Frederick Edwards wrote in MacLean's:
     "No other Canadian city has been so profoundly affected
     by the war..." Reporters liked to call it
     "Canada's frontline city. (Page 303)

According to the text Halifax was a home for 'varied and vital military functions', a headquarters 'for Canadian naval operations in the Atlantic', a key base 'for British and other Allied ships', and the continent's chief gateway 'for war shipping overseas.'

As well it was 'a coastal fortress, a naval training ground, a 3,500-man base for air defense of the coast, a repair shop for thousands of Allied ships.' It would have taken my father and his mates after landing on Halifax's docks all of three seconds to realize the greatest war of their lives was still being waged upon Canadian shores. They didn't escape the war by sailing out of Greenock, Scotland and watching the western shoreline of Allied Europe disappear from view, or by allowing their thoughts to wander home to family and friends and girls and leave as they crossed the Atlantic Ocean, at least not for more than a moment at a time. Reminders of the war would have filled the air they breathed and steeped the water under every ship they saw including their own. And almost as soon as they hit Canadian shores the war hit them in the face and filled their minds and nostrils.

Welcome home, Boys! Sign up again right here!

If my father and mates didn't succumb to the pressure exerted by foreign accents they heard on every block ('Cockney, Yorkshire, Lancashire and Scottish') or the faces from faraway places in every long queue ('Egyptian, Malayan, and Hindu seaman'... 'airmen from Australia and New Zealand'... 'Canadian soldiers, and sailors of Allied countries: Free French, Norwegians, Dutchmen, Poles') then something else likely easily hooked them.

In my opinion, the steady ship traffic in Halifax harbour would have caught my father's eye, and stirred patriotic, passionate and protective feelings combined.

["... the most memorable sight... a convoy slipping out..."]

In his memoirs he writes about his time in convoy around the southern tip of Africa on his way to Egypt and then Sicily in the summer of 1943. During his first inspection of his transport ship, the SS Silver Walnut, he called it 'a real dud'. During the trip, because of constant engine troubles and growing separation from the rest of the convoy, he felt he and the ship were nothing but 'submarine bait'. But once in Egypt he saw a silver lining in the slow, dangerous voyage (those who arrived early suffered from dysentery) and in later years professed his undying love for the old, well-worn vessel that had once been his home.

And there he was in Halifax in late 1943 surrounded by glorious ships of all sizes. Thomas H. Raddall in Halifax, Warden of the North, describes the sight of a convoy in this manner:

     The pageant at the harbor mouth held its fascination

     until the very end. Right up to early 1945 when ships

     were mined or torpedoed sometimes within gunshot

     of outer Halifax forts, and the distant thud of depth

     charges could be heard through the open window of

     the Nova Scotian Hotel, the sight of the gray ships

     plodding out to face such music all the way to Britain

     or Murmansk was something to catch the heart.

     No one could watch it unmoved.

One day I'll know the truth. With my father's Navy records in hand I'll learn where he signed up in 1943 for two more years with the RCNVR. At that time I'll likely learn the exact date as well. 'The why' may always be in doubt, but for now I think it was because he knew there was a war on - and felt it very deeply as hundreds of ships passed him by - and he wanted to help.

And a few weeks later, in January, 1944 he boarded a train bound for Vancouver, British Columbia.

Well done, I say, to my father and to his mates.

More to follow.

Photos by GH

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Please click here to read Dad's Navy Days: December, 1943 - Wine, women and war (21)