A Reader's Letter Hits Home
(It Inspires One Last Post)
Photo Credit - The Winnipeg Tribune, Sept. 11, 1943
Introduction:
I wrote a weekly column (almost every week ; ) for ten years after I retired from teaching and in the last year (2012) my focus shifted from writing about a smattering of personal interests to wanting to write about my Dad's Navy days.
So, I retired from the weekly column in the fall of 2012 and created an online site in 2015 that serves as an archive - a place to post whatever I can find - concerning the 950 - 1,000 Canadian sailors (including my father) who volunteered for RCNVR and Combined Operations (beginning in 1941), and went on to chiefly man small to large landing crafts in most major operations during World War II, from St. Nazaire to Dieppe and North Africa beginning in 1942, to Operations Husky, Baytown and Avalanche in 1943, to D-Day Normandy in 1944, and more. A group my father worked with returned to Canada in December, 1943 and soon volunteered for service again. They ended up in Comox, B.C., January, 1944, at Canada's only Combined Operations training centre, HMCS Givenchy III, on Vancouver Island.
Seven Canadians in RCNVR/Combined Ops travel to Vancouver Island
D. Harrison, front, second from right, said, "It was heaven." Jan., 1944
As this most recent series (in 11 parts) related to Operation Baytown wound down, I spotted a news clipping entitled "U-Boat Sunk With Corvette's Help" as seen at top of page. Not only does it appear at the end of Operation Baytown Part 11, my previous post, but I lead off with it here because - though short in stature - it is mighty big in its ability to remind me of a number of very significant items/events that will help me conclude the series with real drama (!) and rare details.
Very Significant Items/Events, at Least in My Opinion:
I buried my father at sea (Atlantic Ocean), as he had wished, in the summer of 2010, off the coast of Pennant Point, about 35 km. southeast of Halifax. Let's just say that as a future researcher, archivist, writer (re Canadians in Combined Operations), it was the most significant field trip of my life.
During my motorcycle trip back to London, ONT from Halifax (about 2,150 km. over 5 riding days) I stopped in Ottawa. While slowly riding west through heavy traffic - so many stops and starts, on a hot and steamy day - on Rideau St. toward a hostel, I spotted the large, seemingly 20-pound book U-Boat Wars by a German writer and photographer out front of a used-book store. Believing my father had been a member of the Merchant Marine at that time and understanding he had spotted a German submarine on one occasion, I stopped and bought it.
Shortly thereafter I read it, cover to cover, and exclaimed more than once after reading that yet another Allied vessel sank to the bottom of the sea, with desperate losses, by way of a German torpedo, "Why would anyone join the Merchant Marine? What was Dad thinking?"
Within weeks I was knee deep in books from my father's collection (which eventually led me to collect dozens and dozens more; I'm still not done), and with a small clue here and a major detail there I gradually became aware of my father's enlistment in RCNVR and Combined Operations in 1941, his participation in landing craft training exercises in the U.K. beginning in early 1942, and involvement in major operations in 1942 - 1943.
Merchant Marine - that had been a wild guess on my part. Combined Operations - that had been a wild adventure on my father's part. And I'm still learning and reading and collecting and posting information.
In April, 2012 (about four months before I retired as a regular columnist), I wrote an article for The Londoner, our city's largest community newspaper, related to an upcoming journey to Vancouver Island. I wanted to see a WWII Navy artifact with my father's name on it and explore what remained of his last place of service, HMCS Givenchy III at Comox.
A few photos from the trips highlight reel:
I helped unroll the WWII navy hammock. "Yup, there's Dad's name!"
Photo Credit - Museum Staff - Esquimalt Naval Museum, HMCS Naden
On 'a unique tour' of the Esquimalt Navy Base. Not 'Top Secret'.
I was warned not to take pictures of particular vessels. TOP SECRET.
Photo taken by Katie Brissard, from Visits and Protocol HQ
Katie Brissard, in front of a gigantic dry dock. Not Top Secret.
At Courtenay Museum I meet the wife (Maudie Hobson) of my Dad's
coach (George Hobson), of WWII Navy (baseball) Team 1
G. Hobson, back row, white jersey, with Team 1. Dad, front and centre.
Setting is likely Lewis Park, Courtenay, circa 1944 - 45
Dorothy 'Dot" Levett smiles at WWII photos incl. her husband
A sturdy bletherer and I do what bletherers do in Victoria!
I ferried from Victoria to Vancouver - after a healthy blether - and after two days of wandering about that lovely city I piled back onto a comfortable train and, after four memorable days aboard "The Canadian", I returned to London, more fully aware of a good part of my father's WWII service while a member of RCNVR and Combined Operations.
A lengthy email from a reader of my column in The Londoner awaited me, and I was soon thinking that my father was indeed correct with one assessment of his service out west... it was heaven. Especially when compared to experiences of the reader's father, a member of the Royal navy.
Marianne (Allen) Donovan writes:
Good Afternoon Gord:
I read your "Londoner" column yesterday with great interest and you have Clay (another columnist for The Londoner) beat hands down. Although in our family we did call it "blathering," it seems we have similar pilgrimages to make this summer, but in opposite directions. However, both are related to Naval connections. Yours to the Royal Canadian Navy and mine to the Royal Navy.
My father joined the Royal navy as a 19-year old in 1936 because of the need for a steady job during the Depression to help support his widowed mother. At the time War was declared, his ship, HMS Penzance was attached to the West Indies Squadron and was in Bermuda. After having been part of the pursuit to locate and destroy the Graf Spee (but to Dad's glee, not having got anywhere near to the action before Exeter, Achilles and Ajax forced the pocket battleship to take refuge in Montevideo harbour), HMS Penzance was on patrol up the American coast for awhile and was then ordered to Sydney, Nova Scotia, where the first convoy from that port was marshalling.
(Editor's note - I'm pretty sure the last word should be 'Commander'. And the photos Marianne mentions appear below, with full captions).
Caption: A present from rescuer to rescued is pictured above as Capt. Eric Kallstrom, skipper of the Eknaren, gives flowers to the wounded British navy men from the torpedoed sloop of war Penzance at the University Hospital, where they were pronounced "all out of danger" today. Captain Kallstrom, at left, is smiling down at Charles Allen, burned about the face and hands, as another British tar, who fortunately escaped burns but had a couple of ribs cracked, grins back at Allen from the other side. Picture copyright, 1940, by The Baltimore News-Post. All rights reserved. (Story on Page 30.)
Caption: These British sailors, suffering from painful burns, are seen landing at Baltimore, U.S.A, after being twice torpedoed. They were members of the crew of the British warship "Penzance," which was sunk. They were rescued by the British freighter "Blairmore," which, in turn, was torpedoed. They were then picked up by a Swedish ship bound for America and were landed at Baltimore. From "Illustrated," September 1940.
(Editor's note - I ask again, "Why would anyone want to be in the Merchant Marine, or on a freighter or sloop or warship?")
Marianne's email continues:
I decided that on the 70th anniversary of the sinking I was going to Sydney and get out in a boat to cast a wreath off in memory of the 90 who did not survive. I go to New Brunswick every summer anyway as that is where my late husband's family is, so it was only a further half-day's drive.
I have had my father's scrapbook for years and there was a full list of casualties in it so I began to plug the names into Ancestry.com and did come up with about 8 sailors who were included on Ancestry trees, but all were distant relatives to the tree holder, except one, and she was 5 when the ship was sunk, her mother remarried and never talked about what happened to her father except that he was lost at sea.
Marianne's email was a winner from top to bottom - I included it all, word for word, even Cimmander - and she nailed it with her last line:
You can understand why I know that your trip out west is an essential part of who you are today.
Sincerely,
Marianne (Allen) Donovan
London
I tip my hat to Marianne, wherever she may be, and hope her own journeys related to her father's WWII experiences continued to be as rewarding as are my own at this time.
So, I now end this series about Operation Baytown (the invasion of Italy's toe at Reggio beginning Sept. 3, 1943), which ended in October with many of the Canadians in the 80th Flotilla of Landing Crafts returning to 'cash out' in the U.K. before returning to Canada for further service.
In a way, the idea of sailors moving on from Baytown to Paytown gives me a very good launch point for a short series about the Canadians in Combined Ops who volunteered to serve (for about 20 months) at HMCS Givenchy III at Comox, B. C.
Stay tuned.
For more information about Canadians in Combined Ops and their role in the Mediterranean during 1943, please link to Editor's Research: Operation Baytown (Italy WWII) 11a
Unattributed Photos GH
No comments:
Post a Comment