Let me say right now: I liked the Navy. It was tough training, but I was quite strong and passed all the medical requirements.
We took l-l/2 months of training in Saint John, N. B., and then we were sent to Deep Brook, Nova Scotia for advanced train9ing which was a lot harder than the training we had as raw recruits in Saint John, we had a lot of studying of things like signals, and gunnery, parades, etc. We spent one week in an old ship where we learned naval language, about parts of a ship. I found it quite interesting, and I spent about 4-l/2 months there, then I was sent to Halifax, N. S., where we were supposed to be sent to sea. Well…that didn’t happen….there was I, assigned to work in an old building, handling baggage. This is where some of the Naval ratings’ baggage was brought from the train station, and then the ratings, or sailors came and picked up their hammocks, and kit bags.
I didn’t like it there…and bugged the officer-in-charge to send me out to sea, as I wanted to see the world..and live up that old adage ‘join the Navy, and see the world”. We had it really good there. Herb Seager was a good officer, he could give a person a pass to got out to town, and all kinds of things not usually given to ordinary seaman. Anyway, I finally got sent to Montreal , Quebec , where we were billeted in an Army Camp. We were supposed to be sent to a ship that was under construction while there, we were assigned to all kinds of work around the camp, like mowing grass, washing windows, a bit of training. I recall that we got a pass to go and see a baseball game at the Delormier Stadium, where we saw Jackie Robinson, the first colored man to play professional baseball. The team was called the Montreal Royals of the minor league…we also were given free tickets to see movies, and sometimes invitations to private homes and for a good meal in a homelike atmosphere. Another great thing is that the barracks was located close to a street or a road that buses used to bring many people to work at this aircraft factory.
One story is that when the buses went through, the girls would throw their phone numbers out onto the parade grounds….it was quite a scramble when we would all be trying to grab the pages, their addresses were written on a piece of paper, and they were rolled up and tied to a nut or a bolt, so they’d land on the parade ground!
The ships that were supposed to be ready or completed were not on time: so here again, we were sent back to Halifax , where we were to wait for another ship which was under repair in the U. S. A. port of Charleston, South Carolina.
We left Halifax sometime in the month of August, l944. Our first train change was in Boston , Mass.. Some of the fellow got drunk, and we had about a five hour wait for the next train which was to New York . One of the group fell, and broke a window, and cut his arm badly. He was taken off in New York City , and sent to a hospital there (a Petty Officer)….I believe we changed trains again in New York . I know we had to spend one night on the train, we were given double-beds, and I had to sleep with a really stout fellow. It wasn’t what I had dreamed about! When we got to Charleston , we were billeted in their U. S. Navy Barracks…it was really good, as we had single beds. We had it great there. The food was very good and we were served beautiful big jugs of cold lemonade at noon hour. It was very hot there at that time of the year.
This ship was still under British Naval Control. Rum was served to use at 11 a.m. daily, not everyone was entitled to get their daily rum ration. Sailors who were under age, which was 19. Some sailors were not entitled to receive a daily ration of rum because of their bad behaviour. Then I met a fellow, his name was Larry Sampson, he had been on a British ship prior to this one (named Uganda ), and knew the routine of getting our rations of rum. He would get a small pail, and at 11 a.m. would line up for rum, he was called the “Bosum”…he would say to the officers pouring out the rum…”No. 11 mess, sir he would look on his list to check to see if sailors in that mess table were entitled to so many tots of rum. I really don’t know how many he used to get, but it was more than we were entitled to, so we were allowed to sit down in the recreation space on the ship, and sometimes we would too much, and when it was time to go for lunch, we wee too drunk to walk….this went on for about a week, until we got a new Petty Officer.
He saw what was going on, and so he stopped us from drinking rum. Until the ship was officially turned over to the Canadian officers, which was on October 21st, l944.
Anyway, it was just as well that he had done that, as we could have gotten hurt.
Afterwards, the ship was christened the “H. M. C. S. Uganda”. Our rum ration was restored: we had to drink it at a table, where the leading seaman saw you drink it, and it was mixed with water so you couldn’t save it up for future ‘drinks’….the Chiefs and Petty Officers got pure rum, and were able to save up for a future party. That has now been discontinued in the Canadian Navy: it caused a lot of trouble.
We left Charleston , S. C. about October 24th, l944, and sailed to Halifax, N. S., we were thre for five days, and we went ashore, some of the sailors got drunk, and were picked up by the Halifax Police, and sent to the ship where they were given punishment for being drunk!
We crossed the Atlantic ad arrived in the Royal Navy Base, in the Orkney Islands , Scotland on Nov. 4th, l944, and then on Nov. 5th, we left Scapa Flow and sailed on to Newcastle-on-Tyne, England where we went to dry dock for repairs. Actually, we were there for about a month’s time, then we sailed on to Grenoch , Scotland and arrived at that location on January lst, l945. After only one day, we sailed to Gibraltar: another British Naval Base at the entrance to the Meditteranean, and from there we sailed to the Island of Malta, after three or four days there, we again sailed, this time for Alexandria, Egypt, where we were given leave (that is, if you were not on the ‘black list} ..they were sailors who had done something wrong, and they had to do extra work, like cleaning toilets, etc. We were there until February 14th and then we sailed through the Suez Canal to Aden, Saudi Arabia, from there we went to Columbia, Ceylon (which is now called Sri Lanka)….and from there to Freemantle, Australia, and on to Sydney, Australia.
We were in that location about two weeks, then on to Leyete, in the Philipines. From there, we went up to the battle- area around some of the still occupied islands near Japan. We were up there from April of that year until July.
We saw some suicide planes, one of the aircraft carriers (a British one) was hit, and the kamakazi planes would dive right into the aircraft carriers where the most planes were waiting: that way they could do the most damage.
They did not both with the small ships….we were in that fighting area for two days: then it was back again to refuel for two days, that was quite a seaman’s job, trying to keep the ship from straying out of line, so as not to break the big hoses that the oil-line went to the ship we were on. We were in the Pacific, and there on V. E. Day, when we got the news that President Roosevelt had died. This was in the month of May, in l945. We did not get ashore until sometime in June: we never stopped steaming for a total of 33 days! It was quite hot there, the stokers were the people down in the boiler rooms and engine rooms that really suffered with the heat….we were there from about the middle of April until July 27th, l945 (my dad’s birthday)….when we were ordered to return to Canada.
We sailed by the Island of Iwo Jima , that is where the U. S. Marines raised the American Flag, when the island was captured, then on to Pearl Harbour, where some of our sailors got leave to go to the beaches of Wakakie….I did not get to go on that particular beach, as it was not my turn to have some leave. Then on back to Canada : to Esquimalt , British Columbia . I forgot to mention that the first time the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan was August 5th, l945. We arrived in Esquimalt on August 10th, l945.
Let me say that discipline was slack after the ship was ‘de-ammunitioned’..rum was plentiful: I went ashore one night with three bottles of diluted rum. Our Leading Seaman, Hill, didn’t inspect us too closely…three of us got quite ‘drunk’ but we shared some of the rum with some of mess-mates.
It had been quite a trip….leaving Charleston , South Carolina , October 24th, l944, and arriving in Esquimalt , B. C. August 10th, l945…we had sailed more than 80,000 miles.
I can honestly say that I was quite happy about our experiences, but I must admit that I was sorry to see the war end in a way…as I was having a great time and had had a great time. We were again given 30 days leave to go home. We left Victoria, B. C. and sailed to Vancouver, B. C. where we were driven to the train for Montreal , QC . We had a great trip across Canada (five days) and I spent 3 days in Montreal , then went back to New Brunswick by C. P. R. While I was home I received a telegram, asking if I would like to continue serving Canada in the Navy or desire my discharge. I said that I would like to receive my discharge after the 30 day leave was up. I was ordered then to go to Saint John , N. B. and wait for the official discharge, which was on Nov. 5, l945.
