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When the action bell sounded, I had to get down to the 4.7 mm cannon on the bow. One man not doing his duty, with floating mines and enemy U-boats with their torpedoes, could mean the ship could end its career beneath the waves. But no matter how sick you were you had to do your duty. For the first few days I think all the guys were sick. So I puked in my hat and washed it out when I climbed down. I couldn't puke straight down or it would land on the officers on the bridge. With the ship rolling from port to starboard as well as pitching up and down I wondered why I ever joined the Navy. For the first 2 or 3 weeks, my duty was up the mast in the crow's nest. We grew from boys to men really fast.ĭuty watches were 4 hours on and 4 hours off all the time we were at sea. We were going to sea to fight a war, and he was not kidding. He said now we can forget all that crap they taught us ashore. The day I landed aboard with a bunch of other guys, young like me, the captain lined us up midship and gave us our welcome aboard address. because Canada had hardly any fighting ships. I was not on the Beaver very long and was drafted on HMCS Annapolis, an old 4 stacker destroyer given to Canada by the U.S.A. Before I was 18 years old, I found myself on HMCS Beaver, a sort of converted sweeper sweeping for mines on the east coast of Canada and the U.S.A. I was stationed at HMCS Cornwallis in Halifax, before Cornwallis moved to Deep Brook, N.S., to take more training, mostly on large guns. In less than 2 weeks, I was on a troop train with hundreds of Army, Navy, and Air Force personnel heading for Halifax on the east coast of Canada, some to board troop ships for overseas. In a little over a week, I had to learn seamanship, knots and splices, Morse Code, and to read messages with flags. I was now a full-fledged member of the Royal Canadian Navy V.R. With the letter, I showed up at HMCS Prevost in London, was given a real fast medical and a Navy uniform. Honeyman from the Presbyterian Church all signed. Statham the merchant, Chief Tanton, and Rev. It took some talking to get my mother to sign, but she did. They welcomed me with open arms but sent me home with a letter that had to be signed by a parent, merchant, police chief, and a minister from a church.
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A day or two after my seventeenth birthday (1942), I hitchhiked to London to join the Navy.
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The Navy was the only armed force that would take young men and boys 17 years of age. I was eager to join up but was not old enough, so I had to wait. She always said she made the bullets, and her boys fired them. My mother worked in a war factory in Woodstock. Older ladies knit sweaters, socks, and mitts to help keep our soldiers warm. Young children and school kids gathered tinfoil, aluminum, and scrap metal. Everyone worked at something for the war. Without farmers, we could not supply food for the Allied countries and our fighting forces.
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Farm boys went to join but were sent home to grow food for the war effort. I could see young men and women joining the armed forces and going off to war to fight for their country. We all had to have ration cards to buy most groceries and gasoline. When I was a young boy growing up in Strathroy in 1939, Canada entered the war.