Editor's Column: As Published in The Norwich Gazette (Parts 1 - 13)

 We Follow Faint Footsteps that War Veterans Left Behind

The Norwich Gazette is Shuttered But Stories Live On

Canadians in Combined Operations, including my father, man landing crafts

at Arzeu for US troops; Operation Torch, beginning November 8, 1942. 

Photo - RN photographer Lt. F. Hudson, Imperial War Museum (IWM)

Introduction:

My father Doug Harrison (RCNVR, Combined Operations) appears in the above photograph found at IWM. He is either the sailor (far left) stabilizing the landing craft (Landing Craft Assault, LCA) with an anti-broaching line or the fellow (2nd left on the LCA) taking a break - sitting atop an object so he can get a good view. 

"How can I be sure?" is a very fair question.

My father's Navy memoirs share the same information as read in the caption re who, why, when and where, and besides, it just looks like him even from where I'm sitting, almost 80 years after the event.

By using my father's memoirs and newsy articles for his hometown newspaper I assembled a few columns of my own with the goal of producing 24 in all - to tell some of the story re his WWII adventures. I produced 13 before the Norwich Gazette was closed down in 2018. And I may produce more in the future about my father and other Canadians in Combined Ops who participated in the Dieppe raid and invasion of North Africa in 1942, the invasions of Sicily and Italy in 1943, and trained others at a Combined Operations School (C.O.S.) on Vancouver Island from 1944 - 45.

Some who had been overseas in 1942 - 43 served (and played some baseball)

at a C.O.S. on Vancouver Island. Photo - Collection of D. Harrison (far right)

 

Links to the collection of Gazette columns:

Column 1 - Following My Father’s Trail from 1941-45

Column 2 - Canadian Sailors Volunteer for the Unknown, 1941

Column 3 - A Hole in One Ship, Torpedoes in Another

Column 4 - Dark and Lonely Nights

Column 5 - Lovely Scenery and Good Training in Scotland

Column 6 - Sailors Work Hard, Play Hard in Scotland

950 - 1,000 members of RCNVR also volunteered for Combined

Ops beginning in Dec. 1941 while at HMCS Stadacona, Halifax

Column 7 - An Important Training Exercise Goes Awry

Column 8 - Baptism of Fire on the Ennerdale

Column 9 - Dieppe Raid Pt. 1: Norwich Boy Cool Under Pressure

Column 10 - Dieppe Raid Pt. 2: Norwich Boy Deals with Aftermath

Column 11 - Dieppe Raid Pt. 3: Buried With Full Military Honours

Column 12 - North Africa PT 1: Trip to ‘The Med’ for Operation Torch

Column 13 - North Africa PT 2: The Landings and 11 Days Hard Labour

A navy hammock that made its way around Africa in 1943, pre-Operation Husky

Photo sent to me from CFB Esquimalt, Vancouver Island

Please click here to read a story by Doug Harrison - A Voyage Around Africa to the Invasion of Sicily, Operation HUSKY

Unattributed Photos GH