Chapter Twelve
I still remember Swallows and Amazons, the Spenceley’s gift to me in 1939. It was a book by Arthur Ransome which I mentioned previously.1 Eventually at birthday and Christmas, I was given all the books in the set, and dinghy sailing was so well described that I knew how to sail a dinghy the first time I stepped into one. Even from the age of eight, my dad might be partial to the army but I was determined that it was the navy for me.
I had looked into the navy in our first month at university and had persuaded my friend Burf Kay that we should both join the University Naval Training Division. So on a Tuesday evening in September we ventured down to H.M.C.S. York, the naval establishment for Toronto located on the Lakeshore near the foot of Bathurst Street. The old Toronto Maple Leafs baseball stadium was on the corner and there was a large Tip Top Tailors factory next to the naval base. A couple of years ago I was back to HMCS York for a mess dinner. The baseball stadium was gone and the Tip Top Tailors factory was called something else, but the HMCS York drill hall looked just as I remembered it more than fifty years before.
We were enrolled as Ordinary Seamen and they started to issue us with square rig uniforms2, but soon it was decided that we would be promoted to the rank of Cadet, so all the square rig kit was retrieved and, bit by bit, we were issued 5Bs otherwise known as ‘battle dress’. In the air force they called them ‘bomber jackets’ and that’s the way most people know them today. My kit was not complete until I arrived in H.M.C.S. Stadacona in May of 1950 to start my first summer’s training.
Burf was assigned to the Supply Branch so he went to H.M.C.S. Naden in Victoria and had his training at Royal Roads. My eyesight was borderline short-sighted so at first they were going to assign me to the Supply Branch as well, but at my father’s instigation, I requested a retest and passed—barely. I was then assigned to the Executive Branch so I went to the east coast. Previously, UNTD cadets had gone to H.M.C.S. Cornwallis with all other new entries, but ours was the first year to go to HMCS Stadacona for training.
First Summer, 1950. Stadacona
I had never been to the east coast before. We all assembled in Union Station in Toronto, took the train to Montreal, and then got the ‘Ocean Limited’ to Halifax. Officers could get lower berths and a seat in the parlour car, but not us. As officer cadets, we were entitled to an upper berth and an ordinary seat in the Pullman. The Ocean Limited left Montreal at supper time and I remember seeing Quebec City from the Levis shore, before it got too dark and the porter came through to convert the Pullman seats into berths so we could turn in. When we woke up and looked out in the morning, we were in New Brunswick, and eventually in the early afternoon we arrived in Halifax. After relative luxury on the train it was a comedown to be herded into open trucks at the railway station for our ride to Stadacona.
H.M.C.S. Stadacona was in a large block of land between Barrington and Gottingen Streets in Halifax. The main entrance to the base was off Gottingen, but there were two gates off Barrington St. as well. Our barracks was F Block and our mess was the Gunroom in another building about 50 yards away. There were large dormitory-style rooms with four double bunks in each. Altogether there would be about 250 cadets from all across Canada in the barracks. We were up each day at 0630 hours3 and had callisthenics outside before breakfast. Morning Divisions was at 0800 h. on the main parade square near the main gate. After that we had instruction in Navigation, Seamanship, Gunnery and several other things. We were expected to keep a log of what we had done and I soon learned that this was not a personal diary but an account of our instruction and progress.
The military is different from any other kind of job. In most jobs you work for a designated period such as 40 hours a week. In the military, you are on duty 24 hours a day and are granted leave from 1700h to 0730h the next morning, unless of course you are on duty watch. It was all a bit like summer camp but on a bigger and more serious scale. We were involved in many things both on the base and in the city. I remember a Halifax Natal Day parade down to the Citadel on a very hot July day. In our blue serge uniforms we were suffering from heat prostration and several cadets fainted. But there were fun times too.
We were always in uniform on duty, but could wear civilian clothes while off the base. Officers were saluted by everyone below them in rank and must return the salute even if they were in civvies. You could only salute while wearing a cap so headgear must be worn outside at all times. We were told that we were officers, albeit not yet commissioned, but if we went ashore (off the base) in civvies, we must wear a hat. We all went uptown to buy the most garish hats we could find. I got an electric blue fedora style hat which lasted me throughout my navy career. After that it disappeared. I never had the nerve to wear it anywhere else.
There were endless rules and regulations which we were always forgetting. One of the cadets offered a simplified guide to help us stay out of trouble:
If it moves, salute it. If it doesn’t move, pick it up. If you can’t pick it up, paint it.
There were detentions for a whole variety of crimes and misdemeanours. It took very little to get on the slackers’ list and then to appear before the commanding officer of the UNTDs to be allotted a punishment. Usually it involved no shore leave for a few days or a week but running around the parade square was also popular, or getting up at 0600h for extra callisthenics. This took me back to my days at Trinity College School.
Alcohol played a large part in military life ashore or afloat. Looking for women seemed to be most of the rest. I was only 19 that summer and the drinking age in both Ontario and Nova Scotia was 21 in those days. But nobody questioned my age and I learned how to drink beer. In the Gunroom, beer was available every day after classes ended at 1600h and we all partook. We also visited the local establishments in Halifax. On one such jaunt, we went to a tavern which had entertainment. A guy who looked no older than me was playing the guitar and singing country music in a classic ‘down east’ style. His name was Hank Snow and I had never heard of him. He went on to become famous in country music both in Canada and the US. I was able to say I knew him when he was just starting out.
We had a good time too. Some of the cadets from Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia invited us to go over there for a weekend. We were treated royally. We stayed at the Paramount Hotel, a grand old house on the main street, and were well treated by the owner who also was the concierge, the porter and just about everything else. When my parents visited me later in the summer, they were touring the Annapolis Valley and I went with them as far as Kentville and we were treated to a free dinner at the Paramount. I then took the bus back to Halifax.
The First Cruise, H.M.C.S. La Hulloise
There were several training cruises over the summer and I was on the second one. Two World War II frigates were used, H.M.C.S. La Hulloise and H.M.C.S. Swansea. There was extensive preparation before we boarded the ships. We assembled our own hammocks (micks) from assorted bits of rope and canvas. More experienced seamen pointed out that we should also make ‘mick sticks’ to spread the ends. Otherwise, when we climbed into our micks, they would close over us, encasing us like a sausage. A mick has to be stretched out almost flat to be comfortable for sleeping and our weight in the mick would create tension that would make it too difficult to get out.
I was on La Hulloise which was tied up in HMCS Dockyards just across Barrington Street from Stad. We went down on a blue bus and boarded the ship with our kitbags. Saluting the quarterdeck from the top of the brow while struggling to keep your kitbag from falling into the drink was a new learning experience for most of us. Our mess deck was about 30 feet square and there were 48 of us to eat, sleep and live for about four weeks. We each got a footlocker in the bank of seats along each bulkhead. They were about 2 feet deep, 2 feet long and 18 inches wide. Try finding your underwear at the bottom of that mess when you are almost late for morning divisions.
This was a training cruise and we all learned the meaning of on-the-job training. With a scrubber and a bucket of soapy water we learned how to scrub a deck without much instruction. It was the same for painting ship’s side. I was lowered over the side in a boson’s chair with a large brush and a can of heavy grey paint. I don’t remember any instructions. The only instructions I heard were from the Petty Officer to tell the other cadets how to lower me down without dumping me in the drink and how to make the line fast. I bumped against the side of the ship all the way down and somehow I managed to upset the can of paint into my lap. I could feel the heavy gooey liquid soaking into my dungarees and dripping into the already polluted harbour. By the time I was hauled up again and dressed down by the disgusted PO, the paint had begun to set and I literally had to peel my pants off. Washing would not remove the paint. Those dungarees were never the same although I continued to wear them the rest of the summer.
In our mess deck was a small piano. Another cadet, John Mogen was an excellent pianist but when he tried to play it he found that many of the keys were broken. We decided we would fix it. I went ashore and bought some cord and glue and stole some wooden tongue depressors from sick bay. I pulled the keyboard out and found that about ten hammers were broken and the whole thing was out of adjustment. I glued and reinforced the hammers and tried to tune it with moderate success. After the glue was dry, John tried it and declared that it was very good. After a bit, the communications people from the Atlantic command came to see us and take pictures. They sent out a press release which was printed in the Hamilton Spectator, much to the surprise of my parents and friends back home.
The cruise was planned to take us to Saint John and then Grand Manan Island where we planned to spend several days in a secluded cove for a regatta. Then we were to go down the coast to Rockland Maine for a Lobster Festival and then back to Halifax. It didn’t work out that way. The first part was according to plan and I found it exciting. As we cleared Sambro Head, we began to feel the big swells rolling in off the North Atlantic. The ship went up and down and so did the pit of my stomach. I was surprised that I felt queasy but managed to avoid being seasick. I went below but discovered that I felt better on deck where I could see the horizon.
By the next day I had recovered, but when we got to the Bay of Fundy, fog rolled in and we could see nothing. We proceeded to Saint John. I had a duty station on the bridge so I was able to learn the commands and watch how the captain (the old man), the first-lieutenant (‘No. 1’) and the officer-of-the-watch (OOW) handled the ship during docking manoeuvres. A friend of mine who had a duty position on the quarterdeck handed me his camera and asked me to take some pictures of the ship and the harbour as we came alongside. I was able to do this surreptitiously and regretted that I did not have a camera of my own.
The Bay of Fundy has some of the biggest tides in the world. There are tidal bores on the Petacodiac River where the tide comes in and goes out like a wave. Spring tides as high as 60 feet have been recorded in the upper reaches of the bay. Even at Saint John they can be 20 to 25 feet. The huge tides cause the famous Reversing Falls at Saint John where the tide flows rapidly through a narrow defile into a larger body of water, and then when the tide goes out, it flows through the other way. It is more a rapids than a true falls, but it is pretty impressive nonetheless.
In the harbour, the piers and jetties have to be 40 feet high to give enough water under large ships at low tide. I had a day on watch while we were there, and we were constantly adjusting the lines to the jetty either in or out. At high tide, the brow would slope down from the quarterdeck to the jetty which was only about 3 feet above the water. As the tide dropped, we moved it to the main deck and then two decks up and it still sloped down from the jetty to the ship.
It was quite a business moving it. Four of us would haul the brow onto the jetty, swing it around so it would reach the main deck, and then push it back onto the main deck. As the water dropped even lower, we would repeat the process to put the brow onto the Oerlicon gun platform. Then the whole process would be repeated six hours later as the tide came in.
We walked up to the Admiral Beattie Hotel and the big park out in front. We visited a farmers market and bought some fruit. We then decided to phone home. This was in the days before direct long-distance dialling. When it was my turn, I put my nickel in and dialled “0”. The operator came on the line and I asked to place a collect call to Burlington Ontario. The Saint John operator called an operator in Montreal, then Toronto, and as each came on the line they announced their place. Finally I heard a voice in a nasal twang that could have been straight out of Brooklyn: “Hemilton, Ontairryo.” Soon I was talking to my parents.
While we were in harbour, there was a report of a submarine sighting, presumably Russian in the Cabot Strait. A subsequent sighting suggested that it was entering the Bay of Fundy. These were the early days of the Cold War so we were ordered to go and look for it. We left harbour in a hurry and sailed further into the bay. It was hazy and damp and we were all on watch all around the ship. At one point the ASDIC4 operator reported a contact dead ahead. The pings of the ASDIC signal were put through a loudspeaker on the bridge so we could all hear them. We steamed over the spot dropping a hand grenade as a signal to the submarine commander to surface. Nothing happened and the echo of the contact had shifted off to port in a strange fashion because even though it seemed much further away, there was no drop in tone of the ping. Finally the echo depth sounder gave us the clue. There was a sudden rise in the sea bottom and the ASDIC signal must be echoing off that.
I overheard the captain and the OOW discussing this. The captain said “I should have known that no submarine commander in his right mind would come into this bay. When the tide goes out he would not have enough water to stay submerged.” The OOW commented that the sightings of submarines were pretty suspect. He had heard a story of a woman in the USA who reported a submarine over her house. It was an army dirigible. The sighting off Newfoundland seemed genuine enough, but the one in the Bay of Fundy could have been a whale or nothing at all. We spent two more days sweeping the upper reaches of the bay but found nothing. By this time we had missed the Lobster Festival at Rockland Maine so we stopped briefly at Grand Manan Island and then returned to ‘Slackers’, as Halifax was affectionately known by the crew, after gunnery and depth charge trials near Sable Island.
Back to Stadacona
The rest of the summer was fairly routine back at Stadacona. I visited the Hobsons again. Mr. Hobson had been the bank manager at the Bank of Montreal where my father had his accounts but was transferred to Halifax a few years before. My father had kept in touch with him and they were very good to me both summers I was in Halifax. There were parties in the Gunroom and sometimes we were invited to other parties elsewhere in town. I also explored the sights around Halifax. Just north of Stadacona on the shore of Bedford Basin was a strange settlement known locally as Africville.
During the period before the American Civil War, Halifax was a major destination of the ‘Underground Railway’ which helped runaway black slaves from the Deep South to escape to Canada. Even though Canada provided a refuge for these people, it did not mean that there was no discrimination or prejudice. They often found it difficult to be accepted in the city and many moved to this plot of rough land and built shelters out of any materials that were at hand or could be scrounged from the city around them. It was not an official community of Halifax and was not provided with municipal water or electricity.
White people were not always welcome so we were told not to go there. But we could see it from the north gate of the base, and I was fascinated to take a look. It reminded me of the Indian shacks on the farms around us where many of my friends lived during public school. Some years later the City of Halifax was confronted with a dilemma. This was an established community and the City should provide it with services. Instead the City decided to evict all the residents and bulldoze the whole area. I was fascinated on my first visit to the Museum of Civilization in Hull, Quebec that there was a recreated village of Africville in the exhibits.
Second Summer, 1951. Stadacona and H.M.C.S. Swansea
Things were a bit better organized in my next summer at Stad’. The pay had been increased to $175 per month and all found, expenses were small and we could bring home most of the money if we didn’t go out drinking beer too often. The Korean War had been going for a year and six tribal class destroyers, including three who had been at Stad’ last summer, were patrolling the Korean coast. There were rumours circulating that we might be conscripted into the Korean War but there was never any official reference to it. Canada’s solitary fleet-class aircraft carrier, H.M.C.S. Magnificent was secured alongside in the dockyards most of the summer and we got a chance to go on board and also to tour the Fleet Air-Arm base across the harbour at Shearwater.
We were also given much more drill on the parade square. I can remember ceremonial divisions in which I was a member of a special honour guard for a visiting admiral from the US Navy. It was all white gaiters and polished buttons – very pusser – and Lee Enfields with white straps which we had to whiten and polish ourselves.5 We were drilled and inspected by a commissioned officer, gunnery who was tougher than any chief “guns” we had ever encountered. We felt that we had received the highest compliment when he said that we weren’t half bad – for cadets!
Morning divisions were held on the main parade square every morning at 0800h. We were all turned out in our divisional groups and inspected by our officers. A Chief Petty Officer, ‘Guns’ served very much the same role as a regimental Sergeant Major in the army. They inspected very carefully and they didn’t miss much. In those days, Palmolive Soap came in a green wrapper with a black band with the word “Palmolive” in gold letters on it. The letters and the appearance closely matched the ‘Canada’ shoulder flashes we all wore. Over a few beers in the Gunroom, some cadets dared Bob Dougan to wear a Palmolive label over his Canada flashes and go through a divisional inspection. Bob actually wore the fake Canada flashes for almost a week and was never caught, even by old ‘Hawkeye’, the chief who regularly inspected us. Bob became known as the Palmolive cadet.
Cruise to the British Isles
The cruises had been improved this year. Our cruise was to the British Isles and lasted a month. I was on H.M.C.S. Swansea this year. There were three ships in the flotilla, the two frigates from last year and H.M.C.S. Crescent, a British destroyer from World War II, now recycled as a training ship for the Canadian Navy. This summer I bought a small folding camera so that I could record the trip.
We passed Sambro Light on July 3 on our way across the pond. I was an experienced “salty” by this time but it still took an overnight for me to get my sea legs. The frigates roll and pitch a lot in the ever present Atlantic swells and I really began to appreciate my mick which swung with the ship’s roll and neutralized some of the motion. Unfortunately, things were so crowded below that you could not always sling your mick so that it could swing. Sometimes coming off watch in the middle of the night you couldn’t find a place to sling it and would up dog tired sleeping on the lockers or the deck. That was one feature of shipboard life—you were always tired. Grabbing some sleep or shut-eye became a dominant concern at sea. Sailors had all kinds of terms for sleeping, ‘shut-eye’, ‘crashed’, ‘bombed’, and for the places to sleep, ‘cart’, ‘bag’, ‘sack’. This was the first time in my life that I could sleep standing up – and sometimes did.
The routine was different at sea. In addition to the regular work during the day we stood watch. I was on the Second of Port watch. The ship’s company including the cadets was divided into 4 watch groups, two each of Port and of Starboard. While at sea, we all stood watch on rotation. The watch periods were the Middle Watch (0000 – 0400h), Morning watch (0400 – 0800), Forenoon watch (0800 – 1200h), Afternoon watch (1200 – 1600h) First and Second Dog watches (1600 – 1800h and 1800 – 2000h), Evening watch (2000 – 2400h), a total of 7 watch periods each day. The odd number meant that the pattern of watches changed each day for everyone.
Life settled into a routine. Wakey-wakey at 0630h, divisions on the quarterdeck at 0800h, work till 1600h with half an hour for lunch, supper in the mess deck and cleanup and personal things until cart-time. The watches were on top of this and each night you would be on evening, middle or morning watch which meant that every night you were lucky to get six hours sleep. After a week, the bread was mouldy, the milk was a bit ‘off’, and we were so tired of the country and western records they played repeatedly over the PA system that I was standing on the quarterdeck one day when a whole bunch of records came sailing out of a nearby doorway into the sea. Somebody had taken their revenge.
We had a few rough days. I remember one day when the seas were so high that the bow plunged into the next great swell sending waves of water over the bow and down the upper deck. The quarterdeck would go down as the bow rose up and often water would sweep across. The crew was cautioned about going on the upper deck. Lines were strung from the bridge to the after conning position and we would hang on to this line as we made our way from one to the other. On calmer days we learned how to rig a jackstay which would allow us to transfer things and people from one ship to the other on the high seas. A cadet was sent across but because we didn’t keep the line tight enough he got rather wet.
We sighted land in the early morning of July 10th and anchored in Gerrard Bay, near Falmouth that afternoon. We spent the evening cleaning ship then sailed for Portsmouth at 0100h the next morning. This was a nostalgia trip for me even though I had never been there before. I recalled in Peter Duck that the ‘Wildcat’6 had coasted these waters on her way to the open Atlantic. We made Portsmouth by 1100h and secured alongside right beside Nelson’s flagship, H.M.S. Victory. We walked past it every time we went ashore. Because this famous ship is on permanent display there, the whole dockyard is called H.M.S. Victory.
Duty lists had been posted and shore leave granted. We were in Portsmouth for a week and each watch would get a 48 hour pass to go to London. I remember venturing out rather timidly on that first afternoon past the Victory, through the main gate and walking down to the waterfront. It was an exciting and new experience for me. We explored the town and were taken on tours of the harbour, the Fleet Air Arm station at Lee-on-Solent and the H.M.S. Duke of York which was moored in the basin. I remember that there were two heavy cruisers moored beside her.7 In my scrap-book I commented: “– from our mooring she looked like a destroyer with two corvettes alongside.”
48 Hours in London
Our ‘48’ was eagerly anticipated. I was invited to go with three other guys on my watch, Irving Strong, Dick Outram and Dave Code. I also had been in touch with the Spencelys who were looking forward to a visit. Also in 1951, the Festival of Britain was on. This was intended to show Britain’s recovery from the devastation of the Second World War. I quote from my scrap-book diary:
Sunday, July 15
We had considerable difficulty in convincing the officer of the day that we had to have liberty at 1200 (Second of Port was duty watch until 1200) to catch the only reasonable train for London at 1225 (They really leave on time.) We found out about First and Third class coaches but it was rather a rush to make it at all. The trains really travel but the roadbed is poor. We arrived at Waterloo station at 1440 and had our dinner – better than I feared but not as good as I had hoped. We phoned the hotel recommended to us (Franklin Court – 11 Craven St.) and made the necessary reservations.
After confirming our reservations and moving in we set out to explore. Mme Toussaud’s Wax Works came first. Taxi to Westminster. We looked around – but of course on Sunday there were no guided tours of the Abby or anything. Went across the Westminster bridge and took pictures of it and of the South Bank (Festival.) We recrossed the bridge to try to find a restaurant. We then attended the evening service in the Abbey (an American from Cincinnati gave the sermon) and then set out again to see the world. Dick Outram and I wanted to get to a concert but few were at hand. We found that the Festival Hall had been sold out for weeks (Sir Malcolm Sargeant and the London Philharmonic – Wonderful Program) so we went to the exhibition itself. Stayed for about 4 hours then crossed the Thames by a footbridge from the grounds. We then decided we were hungry but do you think we could find a single place open? (time 2245) I thought of my father’s complaints about Toronto one Sunday evening when he could not find anything open. “Not a very metropolitan city” he said. Returned to the hotel and went to bed.
Monday, July 16
Wakened fairly early by the maid who brought up breakfast. She was from Germany and couldn’t understand the Englishman’s method of hotel keeping. The place was cheap enough ($1.40 per night 8 – Bed and breakfast) but as far as we could discover there was only one bathroom for three floors and when it went on the blink Monday night we found ourselves shaving in a basin the size of a big cereal bowl with cold water and doing you-know-what in the “Men’s” of the local Tube station. Anyhow – the accommodation was worth $1.40 so who cares?
Dave, Irv. and Dick wanted to go shopping and I decided to go exploring. I phoned Mrs. Spencely first and she insisted I visit her that afternoon. I went to Trafalgar Square and up by St. Martins-in-the-Fields to Piccadilly Circus where I had my picture taken under protest. Back to Trafalgar and under Admiralty arch onto the Mall. I noticed a crowd moving down it towards the Palace and discovered there would be a changing of the guard that morning. I, of course, raced down to catch all the details. A roving guide helped to get me in position for good shots. Followed the horse guards through the park to Whitehall. Met the other guys there. We all set out to explore some more – along the Mall. I continued on down to Victoria station where I was to catch a commuter train to East Croydon.
I met Mrs. Spencely with no difficulty and went out to their Home. I was entertained by Janet and we went down to the “Public Bath”. The changing booths were really quaint – a door which conceals only the vital portions – Men down one side, Women down the other – the “Bath” in the middle. Returned to the house after a time. Mrs. Spencely decided to take a drive out to “The Old Cottage” at Putings9 in Kent. – Beautiful drive in the most beautiful green countryside. One narrow road which was barely wide enough for the car – we took at 35 m.p.h. had tea at “the Old Cottage” and explored the pasture – I nearly had my hand taken off by an over-affectionate horse.
We returned via Winston Churchill’s country home to Haling Park Road. I was expected back at the Hippodrome to see “The Follies Bergère de Paris” so I took an early train back and arrived at the theatre about 8 pm. I took the Tube from Victoria station and learned what a subway can be. I arrived just as the first show was getting out and I saw more of my friends than I thought there were in London. Dick Outram arrived out of the blue at last, and without saying a word and with a dramatically mysterious air, led be off. It was anti-climactic however. – The other fellows were just getting supper in a near-by restaurant. Leo Charendoff linked up with us and we all went off to the show.
It was really very good and not all what you would expect. I won’t show the program for it is somewhat misleading in this respect. Incidentally, Mrs. Spencely expected me to stay the night with her and I knew that last train left Victoria station at 11:35 – sharp! The show was out at five to eleven – so I raced out, with some difficulty caught a taxi – and got my bag from the hotel. I made it too — although I had a slight argument with the guard at the gate as to whether I should board it or not. I phoned the Spencely home from East Croydon Station and Mrs. Spencely came and picked me up. After a light snack I went to bed in spite of Sally’s questions and conversation from the next room.
Tuesday, July 17
The day dawned bright and clear I guess – though I wasn’t up to see it. I did get up somewhat later and had a wonderful breakfast. I caught an early train since we had to be back to the ship by noon. At Victoria I got a commuter to London Bridge and from there another to Waterloo. I had to run across the street to get into the proper part of the station for the Portsmouth train and there linked up with all the other boys for the horrible trip back. We were back on board at 11:55.
We went to “Brigadoon” at the old Kings Theatre in Portsmouth that night as a special sailing treat.
As I read this after more than half a century, I am reminded of an age of discovery when everything was new and exciting. You had to make your own way in the world without planned tours and travel consultants. This was England just 6 years after the war and it was still recovering from the blitz. Yet the spirit was high and we all felt that we were part of an important enterprise. These spirits might be dashed by later experience, but you have to have this feeling in the first place to appreciate what comes after it and set it in perspective.
Lamlash, Belfast and back to Slackers
We sailed on Wednesday for Lamlash. We contemplated a stop in Swansea Wales but CANFLAGLANT 10 had not made the necessary diplomatic arrangements so we saluted as we sailed by. Lamlash is about the only town on the Isle of Arran in the Firth of Clyde and it was the site for our flotilla regatta. I have pictures of the ships, and the various sports such as boat pulling with whalers and jousting with mops. We were there a week and never got ashore. The captain said “Three ships’ companies and 150 cadets? We’d overrun the town.” That was the end of the discussion.
We did have a party on Holy Island the last night we were there. Holy Island is a small uninhabited island in the bay and they brought large kegs of beer and sides of beef from Lamlash for the biggest bun and beer bash I had ever seen. We scooped the beer out of the open kegs – hops and all, and ate buns with slabs of Scottish beef roasted over an open fire. Barbequed hamburgers and Labatts would never taste the same again.
Then we were off to Belfast for a couple of days. In 1951 the ‘Troubles’ had not yet begun. Shankhill Road was just another street. Problems between Protestants and Catholics were very much present though and we were aware of this even walking the streets. We visited Queens University and the Festival of Britain site which mainly featured Irish agriculture. Second of Port was on duty one day and we watched some of the men straggle back a little the worse for wear at various hours of the evening and night.
The next evening was our last in the British Isles. One of the guys wondered if we could go to a dance in the local hall. Another thought we could get some dates from the nurse’s residence of the local hospital. We finally found a number and called. A woman’s voice answered but when she heard a man’s voice was all set to hang up. She was prevailed upon to listen when we stated we were Canadian officer cadets on a cruise and sailing tomorrow. She found some blind dates for us and later, when we went around to the hospital to pick them up, that it was lucky that one of the nurses had been walking down the hall and picked up the phone. The regular secretary on the desk would not have given us the time of day. It was a great last night for the cruise.
The next day, we sailed for Londonderry where we refuelled for the cruise back across the pond. Then it was clearing the headlands of Lough Foyle and onto the broad Atlantic. I had lost my sea-legs by then and the first night I was on the middle watch. We sat leaning against the funnel drinking kye11 and reminiscing about the trip. After a while the kye and the steady roll of the ship got to several of us. As we rushed to the nearest rail a petty officer yelled at us “Fer Gawd’s sake. If you want to puke go to the leeward side.” We turned around to see that we had decorated the side of the funnel.
The third day out we hit the tail of an Atlantic hurricane. I don’t know how big the swells were but when we were in the trough, some of them were higher than the bridge. We were in ‘pipe-down’ for 24 hours.12 I have some pictures of La Hulloise cresting a swell in which you can see the ASDIC dome on her keel.13 After we passed through the storm, we did depth charge trials and the cooks were at the ship’s side picking up all the fish we had killed. We had them for supper that night. And before we knew it, we were going by Sambro light and into the same berth we had been in a month before.
Stadacona and Home
The rest of the summer was the usual classes, drills and exercises. Because some cadets did not pass their signalling test, we were all out at 0600 for half an hour reading Morse code. An RN cruiser was in port and the Royal Marines put on a drill on the parade square called “Beat the Retreat”. It was excellent. I did celestial navigation using the Mark, St. Hillaire method; before the days of calculators and computers, we worked it out with logarithms to the 6th decimal place. Other than once placing my ‘ship’ in the middle of the Sahara Desert, I did pretty well on that. Some American midshipmen on a tall sailing ship came into port. We entertained them in the Gunroom and showed them the town. They told us in a broad New England accent that they were from New London, Connecticut on the “Thaymes” River.
Finally in early September it was time to go back to school and our ‘normal’ lives. It was back on the train but we all knew each other better then so the trip was one big party. There were open bottles of beer in every car but the trainmen and conductors made a mild protest then looked the other way. The train stopped in some small New Brunswick town and a couple of the guys spied a beer store near the station. I will never forget the two of them running with a ‘two-four’ between them as the train slowly began to pull out of the station. We assumed that they had missed the train but later, as the train was clipping along, I spied the two of them huddled on the steps under the platform at the end of a car about three up from where I was. I wouldn’t have seen them if we hadn’t been going around a curve. I ran through the car, calling for buddies to help as I went and lifted the platform to let them climb into the car. They almost dropped the case of beer but one guy said afterwards, “After all that, if I dropped it, I’d ‘a gone after it.”
Notes:
1 Arthur Ransome wrote a whole series of children’ books about sailing between 1936 and 1944. They were little known in North America but I became captivated by them and what with birthdays and Christmas, I acquired the whole set. I think that this was what influenced me to join the navy rather than the army which was my father’s choice.
2 Battle dress (5B) was a working uniform for officers and the rank was shown on shoulder boards (epaulettes). Cadets were assigned 5B as their full dress uniforms but had a white twist on the lapel and no epaulettes.
Our uniforms were the same as the Royal Navy uniforms with “Canada” shoulder flashes added. Officers dress uniforms had eight buttons on the jacket and gold rings on the lower sleeve to designate rank. Petty officers had six buttons with badges to show the rank. Ratings below the rank of Petty Officer wore bell bottoms and pullover tops with the square back flap on the collar – hence the name square rig.
3 We learned the 24 hour clock early on.
4 ASDIC is an acronym which stands for Admiralty Submarine Detection Investigation Committee. It was set up by the Royal Navy after the First World War because German submarines had wreaked havoc on allied shipping and could not be easily detected if submerged. Radio waves do not easily penetrate water but the committee scientists came up with a system which used high frequency sound waves. The waves could be focussed under water for direction and the time it took for the echo to come back gave an accurate measure of the range (distance) of the contact.
The operator wore headphones to hear the ping of the returning echo and the tone (frequency) rising or lowering, gave a good idea whether the target was moving towards or away from the ship. It was very important in the North Atlantic convoys in 1940 and 1941. The devices were Top Secret and in scarce supply so that in the early years of the war, only one or two escort ships might have one. The technology was shared with the Americans who had been working on a similar device. When the USA entered the war in January 1942, they called it SONAR and began producing the sets in large numbers.
5 A few definitions:
“Pusser” – Strict government issue. All very correct and proper. To be contrasted with:
“Tiddley” denoting something fancy and ornamental which met regulations but was not government issue. For example, our cap badges had originally been woven prior to the war but government issue in 1950 was a gold coloured badge stamped out of metal in one piece. This was “pusser.” I bought a woven cap badge which cost extra and was a regulation badge but because it was not standard issue, would be considered “tiddley.”
Lea Enfield – the Short Magazine Lea Enfield (SMLE) was the standard issue rifle for the British and Commonwealth forces from the late 19th century and throughout most of the 20th century – at least up to the mid-1960s. It served in the Boer War as well as two World Wars.
Commissioned Officer – Ratings who had risen through the ranks to Chief Petty Officer 1st class could apply for an officer’s commission without going through the officers’ training courses like cadets and midshipmen. They received a rank like Lieutenant with two rings, but they were called commissioned officers and addressed as ‘Mister.’ The US Navy had a similar system. Hence the play “Mister Roberts”.
Guns – The gunnery branch in the Canadian Navy was responsible for discipline and drill training much as the Royal Marines were in the Royal Navy.
6 This was Arthur Ransome’s third book about the Swallows and Amazons’ voyage to the Caribbean in quest of buried treasure. Uncle Jim’s schooner was called the Wildcat.
7 The Canadian Navy cruisers were light cruisers and hence smaller than these.
8 That would be 9s 6d – nine shillings and sixpence.
9 The home of Sir Philip Manson-Bahr.
10 Canadian Flag Officer, Atlantic Command.
11 Kye is cocoa made with lots of sugar but no milk. After boiling on the back of the stove in the galley for a day or so, it develops a definite kick and an aroma that you will never forget.
12 This meant that no-one was to be on the upper deck without rappelling gear. A cable was stretched from the bridge to the after cabins and the quarterdeck and you snapped a hook onto the cable so you wouldn’t be swept overboard.
13 The ASDIC housing is directly under the bridge.