Dad's Navy Days - Jack Dean, Toronto

A Good Detective

["I'm 96% certain the sailor (centre) in this IWM photo is my father"]

My Dad took part in the Allied invasion of North Africa in November, 1942 and mentioned a few words in his Navy memoirs about who was with him on his landing craft, i.e., Leading Seaman Jack Dean of Toronto and Lt. McDonald, RNR. Like a good detective I've been searching for more information about the Imperial War Museum photo above (found in Assault Landing Craft by B. Lavery) and have tracked down a story by LS Jack Dean, now deceased.

The story appears in From St. Nazaire to Singapore: The Canadian Amphibious War 1941 - 45 Vol. I  and reveals Jack was a member of Combined Operations and trained for the Dieppe raid and invasions of North Africa, Sicily and Italy, as did my father. Some of my father's own stories re WW2 appear in the same book and together the stories make me think that the IWM photo may contain a glimpse of both men.

 Last night I found information about Jack Dean's family (he has a surviving son, John, in Brighton, Ontario) and if I can connect with him I will pass along this rare WW2 action photo. If he can spot his father then I will be 100% certain that a certain sailor up to his knees in the waters off the coast of Arzeu, N. Africa, is my own father.

Good find, I say.

And now that I have John's phone number I will just give him a call.

Link to more Dad's Navy Day's

Photos GH

Dad's Navy Days - D-Day North Africa

Details in B & W

["Norwich boys. Doug Harrison, left. Buryl McIntyre, right"]

If I study some of my Dad's black and white photos from WW2 long enough - and dig - I sometimes come up with interesting discoveries. Take the one above.

Details: 1941. Halifax. On the grounds of HMCS Stadacona (a Naval base my dad mentions in his WW2 memoirs). Outside Wellington barracks, Mess A (Mess B was a separate building for officers, and it still remains). Some of the details are written on the photo or in Dad's memoirs and some I discovered the hard way, e.g., after motorcycling to Halifax twice and digging deeper.

Side Bar: I can tell Dad is standing outside Mess A because of the round arch over the entrance. Mess B does not (and did not) have the same type of entrance according to many photos housed in a museum file on the grounds of HMCS Stadacona. Details, details.

 ["Wellington Barracks, Mess B (Officers), at HMCS Stadacona, Halifax"]

 ["Mess B has no curved arches over any doorways"]

["Mess A is now gone. Replaced by new quarters and Tim Hortons. Ugh"]

Yesterday I posted a rare photo (from Assault Landing Craft) of men in landing crafts on the beaches outside of Arzeu, North Africa. D-Day. November, 1942. At that time I said I was 95% sure the man in the dark navy uniform is my father.

["I am now 96% certain the man in Navy blue is my father"] 

In his memoirs he writes:

     On November 11, 1942 the Derwentdale dropped anchor off
     Arzew (sic) in North Africa... Our Coxswain was LS (Leading
     Seaman) Jack Dean of Toronto and our officer was Lt. McDonald
     RNR (Royal Navy Reserve). After the 92 hours (an afore-
     mentioned first shift) my officer said, Well done. An excellent
     job, Harrison. Go to Reina Del Pacific and rest."

His memoirs do not provide, of course, enough information to positively identify the sailor as my dad, so yesterday I checked with my sibs. One sister agreed, 100%, that the man is our dad. She mentioned many similarities, including the way he wore his hat. Another saw similarities in the side profile of the face. But three sibs also raised some questions about his stature, the ring on his right hand, the shape of his hand.

["Many details appear here to lead me on a fruitful search"]

The man seems too lean, said one. I replied that Dad's Navy records reveal he weighed under 130 pounds at entry. Did Dad wear a ring on his right hand? I don't know, but I did for many years, during my teens and twenties. And so on.

However, like any good detective I will follow the crumbs. I will look for a picture of the Derwentdale and compare it with the ship in the photo. I will look for links to the other members of Combined Operations aboard the landing craft. I will search for the roll of film that has the above photo upon it.

But thanks to what one sister said about his hat, I now stand at 96%. I mean, look at that jaunty angle!

["Dad didn't want to mess with his wavy red hair"]

Oh yeah, Dad was 'cock of the walk', all right.

Link to Recommended Reading

Photos GH

Recommended Reading - "Dad, Well Done"

My Dad's Navy Memoirs

[Dad would say, "Those smiles won't last much longer"]

My father, as member of Combined Operations, trained on Assault Landing Craft (ALCs) in several locations in southern England and Scotland during WW2. The Number 1 Training Centre for Combined Operations (CO) was at HMS Quebec, 2 miles SW of Inveraray, Scotland, and, along with a memorial dedicated to the men in CO, I discovered a few WW2 vintage cement ramps placed along the waterfront at Loch Fyne. I learned they'd been commonly used by ALCs and other small craft.

In his memoirs my father wrote the following:

     Thence to HMS Quebec barracks in Ayrshire, Scotland.
     We were all in good shape and this was to be one of the
     more memorable camps, with our first actual work (upon)
     and introduction to landing barges. We trained on ALCs
     which carried approximately 37 soldiers and a crew of four,
     i.e., Coxswain, two seaman and stoker. Some had an officer.

As a seaman, one of his jobs had been to crawl along the canvas covers on each side of the landing craft and rinse out messy helmets handed to him by seasick soldiers. Mnay soldiers saw their excitement and smiles - related to their new experience - disappear after but a few seconds.

["HMS Quebec is now a caravan park but WW2 buildings, ramps remain"]

For readers interested in WW2 books related to RCNVR and Combined Operations, good information is found in "Dad, Well Done", and (among several others) two mentioned yesterday entitled Hostilities Only and Assault Landing Craft by Brian Lavery.

It was in the second book I found for the first time a very clear photo of landing craft on North African beaches (specifically at Beach Z, Arzeu) during the November 8, 1942 invasion. And, here's the thing. If the mother ship in the background is the Derwentdale, then I will be 100% certain the lone seaman with his back to the camera (just left of center) is my father.

I am already 95% certain my father is caught here looking the other way - maybe for the first time (he sure liked the camera). And he looks tired. Maybe this was taken during his first almost-four-day-long shift.

He writes:

     (Once) the bulldozer was unloaded the shuttle service began.

     For 'ship to shore' service we were loaded with five gallon jerry

     cans of gasoline. I worked 92 hours straight and I ate nothing

     except some grapefruit juice I stole. 

"Well done, Dad," I say.

Link to more Recommended Reading

Photos from Assault Landing Craft and GH

Recommended Reading - re North Africa

The Campaign for North Africa

I purchased this book by Jack Coggins during a stop in Ottawa, June, 2014. Though the book is 34 years old it is pertinent to me as I try to read more WW2 books that relate to the raids, invasions or activities my father participated in as a member of RCNVR and Combined Operations. I paid a few dollars for this 195-pager at a used-book room in Ottawa's War Museum and after reading the first 50 pages this week I feel it is a good deal for two reasons.

First, Ports in Algiers are mentioned, i.e., Oran and Arzeu, places my father talks about in his Navy memoirs. For example, he brought supplies ashore on a beach at Arzeu, within sight of an outdoor cafe, and remarked, "Good reconn."

Second, while reading I was reminded of two other books I saw at the museum that I didn't buy, due to lack of space on my motorcycle. So, I contacted the museum yesterday and today with the hopes of tracking the books down. I have Volume 2 of The Naval Service of Canada already and know it is a useful text. It mentions the history of a Combined Operations base on Vancouver Island where my father served from January 1944 'til the late summer or early fall of 1945. Volume I will have details re Halifax, HMCS Stadacona, where father trained as well earlier in the war.

Money well spent if the books are still on an upper shelf where I left them. We shall see, we shall see.

Link to Recommended Reading

Photos GH

Recommended Reading - Hostilities Only

About Combined Operations, WW2

Yippee. A great looking book arrived recently, another online purchase via AbeBooks. Two more winners are expected as well. Yippee!

In 1941 my father volunteered first for duty with the RCNVR and later with CO, Combined Operations, and was soon training (on loan to the RN) for WW2 'assaults and landings' in Scotland (at Irvine and Inveraray) and Southern England (Southampton, Southend-on-Sea, etc.). In his memoirs he mentions he volunteered for two years of HO or 'hostilities only'. Not much has been written about Combined Operations but slowly I am piecing stories together that relate to actual times, places and events my father knew a fair bit about and mentioned briefly in his navy memoirs.

["Beaches and assault craft at Inveraray were familiar to my father"]

["RN Commandos practiced assaults and landings upon Navy barges.

Many of the barges were manned by young Canadians, 1941 - 45"]

["CO insignia was worn by my father. Above is a new one"]

If you know someone who was a member of RCNVR and CO, I recommend you look for a copy of the book by Brian Lavery. Lots of detail as far as I can see after a quick 'thumb through' and I'll tell more once I seriously pick it up this weekend or next week.

Link to more Recommended Reading

Photos GH

Recommended Reading

Drop Zone Sicily by William Breuer

I recently finished reading Breuer's book entitled Storming Hitler's Rhine (very good - link to details) and discovered - on the back fly leaf, thus proving the value of reading everything a book has to offer - the title of another book he'd written a year or two earlier, i.e., in 1983, forty years after D-Day Sicily, aka Operation Husky, an invasion in which my father participated.  I immediately ordered it via Abebooks.com and, voila (!), it arrived yesterday.

Breuer also participated in WW2, is a solid writer, and though he doesn't fully highlight the role of Canadian divisions in his books as much as American, he at least mentions them, more than can be said for other non-Canadian writers.

Link to Recommended Reading  

Photo GH

Recommended Reading

The Last Great Victory by Stanley Weintraub

One of the facts stated in the prologue of this 700-page book re the conclusion of World War 2 deserves mention here:

The war did not conclude conveniently in a single place at a predetermined time. The signing of surrenders, the laying down of arms, the announcements from commanders and heads of state, all spread over global time zones, suggest a variety of dates for the ending of World War II. "V-E Day" (Victory in Europe) and "V-J Day" (Victory in Japan) depended upon the capitals from which they were proclaimed...

So Author Weintraub takes readers around the world, back and forth between events in Europe and Japan during a critical time in our world's history, i.e., the final stages of WW2, July and August 1945. At 700 pages, this book will cover many miles and after reading the first 60 I near the beginning of the end of a great war's story.

["Thousand Year Reich" falls short by approx. 988 years]

I recommend this lengthy, detailed book to all students of history related to WW2.

More to follow as I dig deeper.

Link to Recommended Reading

Photos GH

Recommended Reading

The King's Bishop by John R. Bishop

When I initially found this book at Goodwill Bookstore on Wellington Road S. I was reluctant to buy it because it was not about WW2, but about the Korean War. Then I recalled something I learned while reading books re WW1 and WW2, i.e., the great wars are related in many ways.

So, the Korean War is likely related to the great wars on a variety of levels, I thought, and bought the used copy. It wasn't long before the pages were turning back at home.

An excerpt follows:

   "A freezing rain fell that coated everything
   with an ice slick, turning our clothing stiff
   and threatening to freeze our rifle bolts closed.
   This would be the first of many days and nights
   that would merge into a blur of marching,
   digging, freezing and standing to... 
   what we were supposed to be doing would all
   come clear only in later years." Page 54 

The book is a quick read at 170 pages, written by a veteran of the Korean War (an infantry soldier (then Corporal) who ultimately made the armed forces his life's work), an eye-opener for me as my first dip into the Korean setting. And it is in fact related to the great wars on many levels.

Recommended to students of history interested in Canada's involvement in armed conflicts.

Link to War Anniversaries

Photos GH

War Anniversaries

Recommended Reading

["This is the year to add to your bookshelf"]

World War 1

2014 is a year of anniversaries related to WW1 and WW2. I recommend students of history visit new and used book stores soon because there are thousands of 'very good reads' out there. If you have time, tune into TVO's excellent series re WW1. Part 3, tonight at 10.

World War 2

Link to And No Birds Sang by Farley Mowat

Link to more Recommended Reading

Link to more War Years

Link to WW2 Poignant Stories

WW2: Recommended Reading

The Second World War: A Military History

By Gordon Corrigan

I'm just getting started with this book but I like it already. Details to follow.

During 2014 we reach the 100th anniversary of the start of World War 1 and 75th anniversary of the start of World War 2. TVO is running a very interesting five-part series re WW1, second part is on TV tonight at ten. I recommend the television series to all students of history.

Link to WW2: Recommended Reading

Photo GH

WW2: Recommended Reading

The End...

...by Ian Kershaw

Four hundred pages, felt too long due to a fair bit of repetition. But he does answer his preliminary question well, i.e., what factors caused World War II to go on as long as it did?

Link to WW2: Recommended Reading

Photo GH

WW2: Recommended Reading

When I finished Champagne Navy, a relatively easy read, I opened The LAST DAYS of HITLER by H. R. Trevor-Roper, a writer inspired to work on such a project by a 'brigadier commanding the Intelligence Bureau at the time when Hitler's death was still a mystery', i.e., September 1945.

Link here to a short Wikipedia  bio re Hugh Trevor-Roper.

2014 is the 100th Anniversary of the outbreak of WW1 and the 75th Anniversary of the outbreak of WW2. The book reveals some information concerning links between the two wars and much information about Hitler's diabolical schemes and aides inside his power circle.

While reading the book in a public place a person looked over at, recognized the topic and turned away with a grunt, as if the book was contaminated. I didn't bother explaining the many reasons for my interest in WW2, it significant characters, causes and affects at the time or the various ways it has a grip on the modern, civilized world (if we are, in fact, truly modern and civilized at all). But I found the person's reaction instructive, almost 70 years after Hitler's death.

 

["My thanks to Mac for keeping his copy so clean"]

Highly recommended.

Link to WW2 Recommended Reading

Photos GH

WW2: Recommended Reading

Champagne NAVY by Brian Nolan, B.J. Street

Canada'a Small Boat Raiders of the Second World War

This informative, fast-paced book tells the story of many events involving 72 - 115 foot boats designed to patrol coastal waters, e.g., the English Channel, and harass the enemy during WW2. The introduction states 'motor torpedo boats and motor gunboats were the smallest fighting craft in the Royal Canadian Navy during the Second World War. To be accurate they should be referred to as ships...' And to be more accurate, they should be considered among the fastest of ships in the Navy, and service aboard should be considered more dangerous than almost any other work.

The book was published in 1991, comes in at 246 pages, and caught my attention early when I read that as some Canadian sailors initially arrived in the UK they were 'dive-bombed by a Stuka... just off the Isle of Wight', the same waters where my father (a member of RCNVR and Combined Operations) was harassed by dive-bombing Junkers 88s in 1942 while aboard HMS Ettrick, a troop-ship mentioned in the same paragraph by these future 'small boat raiders'.

On the back cover I also read 'Champagne NAVY is a popular account of Canada's forgotten sailors...' and immediately felt some allegiance to the account. Many men, including my father and fathers of my friends, arrived home after several years of service to a few words of welcome, a notice to return to work and encouragement to resume 'a normal life'. The authors write: For all the publicity the small-boat sailors received and the hoopla they endured during the Second World war, it seems odd that when they returned to Canada in 1945 they were soon as anonymous as when they left their native soil.

I say anonymity was typical of the times. Mens' silence was expected.

That being said, I recommend this book to all students of WW2. At the conclusion one will know more about the sacrifices of brave men who raced across channels and seas in oft-times out-manned and out-gunned boats to guard valuable troops, protect coastal waters and harass German E-boats, mine sweepers and merchant ships. And though the writing is not flamboyant there are several gripping episodes and the occasional paragraph that can be considered 'prose of war'.

see other sunrises

there had been much to celebrate.

when the officers and men awakened

on that day in May in 1945,

it was the first dawn

in nearly 6 years

that was not accompanied

by a promise of death.

the crews knew that

they would most surely

see other sunrises.

it was the first time

in a spectacular year of warring

that they knew they would not be

called on to go to sea to kill

and destroy the enemy.

victory meant, too,

they could now go home.

(page 240)

Link to WW2 Recommended Reading 9

Photos by GH

WW2: Ten Poignant Stories (10b)

The last entry (10a) was from the best set of books about WW2 I have upon my bookshelf, i.e., The Liberation Trilogy by Rick Atkinson. And in each of the three volumes one can read stirling quotes from Ernie Pyle, an American war reporter.

‘To his readers, Ernie Pyle was a master of telling the story of the little guy, of describing the fears and daily strife of soldiers fighting in World War II. He was not just a passionate writer, however. An early “embedded journalist,” he worked alongside the troops, experiencing much of what they did, placing himself in danger as they did.’ [Indiana University website]

[Above: Ernie Pyle, pictured in Normandy not long after the invasion of Europe. Pyle (left) is shown with Gordon Gammack (center) of the Des Moines Register and Tribune and Don Whitehead of the Associated Press. IU Archives] 

The following excerpts are from one of three of Pyle's columns written shortly after D-Day Normandy:

A Pure Miracle 

NORMANDY BEACHHEAD, June 12, 1944 –

   In this column I want to tell you what
   the opening of the second front
   in this one sector entailed,
   so that you can know and appreciate
   and forever be humbly grateful to those
   both dead and alive who did it for you.

Ashore, facing us,
were more enemy troops than
we had in our assault waves.
The advantages were all theirs,
the disadvantages all ours.
The Germans were dug into positions
they had been working on for months,
although these were not yet all complete.

A one-hundred-foot bluff
a couple of hundred yards back from the beach
had great concrete gun emplacements
built right into the hilltop.
These opened to the sides instead of to the front,
thus making it very hard for naval fire
from the sea to reach them.
They could shoot parallel with the beach
and cover every foot of it for miles
with artillery fire.

   Then they had hidden machine-gun nests
   on the forward slopes, with crossfire
   taking in every inch of the beach.

   Now that it is over
   it seems to me a pure miracle
   that we ever took the beach at all.

 

[Ernie Pyle, IU Archives]

These Bitter Sands 

Due to a last-minute alteration in the arrangements,
I didn’t arrive on the beachhead until the morning after D-day,
after our first wave of assault troops had hit the shore.

By the time we got here the beaches had been taken
and the fighting had moved a couple of miles inland.
All that remained on the beach was some sniping
and artillery fire, and the occasional startling blast
of a mine geysering brown sand into the air.

That plus a gigantic and pitiful litter of wreckage
along miles of shoreline.

   Submerged tanks and overturned boats
   and burned trucks and shell-shattered jeeps
   and sad little personal belongings were

   strewn all over these bitter sands.

   That plus the bodies of soldiers
   lying in rows covered with blankets,
   the toes of their shoes sticking up
   in a line as though on drill.
   And other bodies, uncollected,
   still sprawling grotesquely in the sand
   or half hidden by the high grass
   beyond the beach.

[Click here for full article]

Postscript - 

‘Among the Allied casualties was Ernie Pyle...
Eight months later while covering the Pacific war,
he would be killed by a Japanese bullet in the head.’

[pg. 183, The Guns At Last Light, R. Atkinson, The Liberation Trilogy]

This concludes WW2: Ten Poignant Stories.

More war stories will follow, however, under a different banner.

Link to WW2: Ten Poignant Stories 10a

Last Photo GH