I accomplished something this week I’ve wanted to for probably 50 years. I recently received an email from Lew Gregor, friend and membership chair of the Royal Canadian Legion. He was inviting me to the Branch 170 general meeting Tuesday night.
“I want to welcome you,” his note said, “as a new member of the Legion.” (more…)
Commander George Ericson is crouched on the bridge of his corvette warship. He’s peering through a sighting device, lining up his counterattack against an enemy he can’t see, a submerged U-boat in the Atlantic waters directly ahead of him.
“What’s it look like now, Number One?” Ericson calls to his first officer, who is on a sonar device.
“It’s the firmest contact we’ve ever had,” the sonar operator shouts back from below deck.
There’s sudden consternation on Cmdr Ericson’s face. Merchant sailors whose ship has just been torpedoed are thrashing about in the water. They’re shouting for help. “There’s men in the water just about there,” Ericson says.
“Well, there’s a U-boat just underneath them.”
I was told he was coming. John Watson arrived a few minutes before I began a presentation about a major Second World War story, last Wednesday night in Swift Current, Sask. Watson is a tall man. He wore a red jacket, a scarf, and had a twinkle in his eye as we shook hands.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Watson,” I said. “I understand you’re a veteran, that you served overseas in the last war with the Regina Rifles.”
“Yes, I did,” he said. “But don’t forget the ‘Royal’ part.”
“The Royal Regina Rifles,” I corrected myself, then added, “No doubt ‘Royal’ because of you.”
He laughed and said, “I was just a rifleman.” (more…)
I’d got lost in the main square at Ypres, Belgium. I’d asked for directions from the man at a reception desk inside the town’s massive Cloth Hall. As I thanked him for getting me reoriented, I asked him about the story of Ypres’ recovery and restoration after the Great War in 1918.
“You know that the war levelled the city, yes?” I nodded, and he continued. “It was the forethought of the mayor and aldermen and others that saved our city after World War I.”
“I’d heard that,” I said.
“They gathered all the diagrams of buildings in Ieper (as Belgians call Ypres) and hid them in France,” he said.
It’s the way he cajoles strangers into friendly conversation. And at age 99, it seems to have worked pretty well for Simeon Mayou. He points out some of the commemorative pins and service medals he wears on his Royal Navy blazer. Then, he pulls his beret off the table and asks for help.
“Just hold the edge of the beret,” he says, “and help me put it on.” (more…)
She clutched the folded papers in her hands for quite some time. When the officer on board HMCS Sackville called upon her, she knew it was her turn to speak. Then, though unaccustomed to public speaking, Catherine Wilson stepped forward in front of the warship’s company and other civilians assembled there, unfolded the speech, and began:
“My father, John Wallace Potter – better known as Potts – was born on March 10, 1922, in Toronto,” she said. “It took him three attempts to enlist before the Royal Canadian Navy finally accepted him in May 1941.” (more…)
She’s gone now. Queen Elizabeth II died last Sept. 8, and was eulogized at Westminster Abbey 11 days later. Her son, the Prince of Wales, immediately acceded to the British throne as King Charles III.
“We mourn profoundly the passing of a cherished Sovereign and a much-loved Mother,” Charles said the day she died. “I know her loss will be deeply felt throughout the country … and by countless people around the world.”
While I’ve never considered myself a monarchist, I nevertheless do owe Her Majesty a debt of gratitude. (more…)
Seventeen years ago, a number of Canadian and American scientists set off on a unique voyage – sailing the Bellot Strait, a narrow channel in the Arctic Ocean that separates the most northerly point of North American mainland from Somerset Island in Canada’s Far North.
For the first time in history their vessel crossed the strait in October (when typically it would be frozen). One of the scientists on the trip in 2006 noted that Canadian Coast Guard officials aboard the ship all had the same reaction.
“They were collectively terrified,” explained Michael Byers then director of the Liu Institute for Global Issues at UBC. Terrified that the strait was entirely ice-free during the voyage, and therefore open to passage. (more…)
The evening was all about military pomp and circumstance. Hundreds of Canadian Armed Services personnel had gathered last Saturday night at the Beanfield Centre on the CNE grounds for Toronto’s premier social event in the military community. I actually landed a ticket and was seated at a table of Navy regulars and reservists. The 204th edition of the Garrison Officers’ Ball was well underway, when the Minister of National Defence arrived in time to address guests at the ball.
“I have important news to share with you,” Anita Anand said. “Today at 3:41 p.m. aircraft assigned to NORAD successfully took down (a) high-altitude airborne object. The object, flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet, had unlawfully entered Canadian air space and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight.” (more…)
It happened kind of like choosing a partner at a high school dance, where the girls all lined up on one side of the dance floor and the boys on the other.
Only in this case, during the Second World War, the Commonwealth airmen gathered in a hangar in England – pilots in one group, navigators in another, gunners in another, etc. As RCAF gunner Ron Moyes told me the other night, bomber pilot Don Walkey first picked a navigator, Hugh Ferguson.
“Then, Fergy picked the rest of us,” said Moyes, just shy of his 97th birthday (Feb. 11). (more…)