[BillCar]

Part VI: Action in the Channel and Biscay, More Murmansk Runs, D-Day, U-Boat Hunting, German Surrender at Trondheim, The End

The biggest job coming into harbour was tying up to a buoy. It took a good ship handler, and Commander Rayner was a good one. He had to slowly approach the buoy, put the engines to stop, and then into reverse. All of this allowed for one split second for the buoy jumper to leap onto the buoy with a very heavy steel cable over his shoulder. One slight misjudgment would lead to tragedy. In my opinion, the buoy jumper was always the bravest sailor aboard any ship, and that is why I still remember the name of our buoy jumper: Reg ******. I was the one who, on signal from the bridge, had to tell him to jump. Once I saw that Reg had secured the cable to the buoy, two deckhands would bring him back up on a bosun's chair, while the rest of the crew would take hold of the cable, and I would yell 'To the bollards, and bring to!' The crew would then run the cable through the bollards, and to the caspan, which was then activated to take up the slack.

As I said earlier, after refit, there were a lot of new crewmen aboard Huron, some of whom were very green. The new lieutenant of the fo'c'sle was one of them, a new transfer from the Royal Navy. After we had tied up one day, another crewman asked me "did you hear what he was yelling at you?" I said that I hadn't, as I was always too busy to listen to him. My crewmate said "he was yelling 'buckle on, and tiddly-boo!'" I could not believe it, but sure enough, others confirmed this story. He must have heard me on previous occasions, but being an officer, never had the nerve to ask what we were actually saying or doing. That was not the end of it, though. The lieutenant actually reported me to Rayner for not obeying his orders, and I appeared on the bridge. I told Rayner the story as it had been told to me. The commander didn't even ask the ratings to confirm what I was telling him; he simply said that there wouldn't be any more trouble. There must have been another mis-step on the lieutenant's part, because he was drafted off the Huron. It certainly would not have been because of his erroneous yelling, but we had no way to find out why he was suddenly gone after that. In any case, we no longer had an officer on the fo'c'sle, and Kilcup was safe.

After the beating we took at the Ile de Batz, we needed a lot of repairs, and I got a few days' leave. My British mateys at the pub told me that I should go to Nottingham, the reason being that there was no air force or army base near there, and all of the young men were away at war. Four of us went, and we wound up visiting the oldest pub in England, "The Trip to Jerusalem." It was indeed incredibly old, and as proof, all of the upper dividers between rooms were so low that we all had to duck our heads going from room to room. Men were apparently much shorter long ago. We enjoyed our time in Nottingham and found everyone to be very amiable.

At around this time, I came to make the acquaintance of a new ordinary seaman by the name of Adelman. He was a very young, very fat boy who had been coddled all his life, an only child whose every wish was granted. He had joined the navy for the sole purpose of putting off his father (all of this I learned from him ten years later, when we actually became friends by chance). Not a bad kid, per se, but not one given to working all that much, either.

Now, at sea, there are few things to occupy the sailors' time. If they stay below decks, the new ones get seasick and the older ones get into arguments. The only solution is to put them to work. They become angry enough with the task at hand (and the person who assigned it to them) that they forget about their seasickness and their quarrels.

I was making my rounds on watch while we were on our way to Russia again, and happened across Adelman with his pail and scrub brush, moving at a less-than-stellar rate of speed. I said "Come on, move it, would you, Adelman?", but the next time I came around, he was in the same spot, and copped an attitude with me. It's not like me, and I did apologize to him for it all those years later when we became friends, but I kicked him square in the ass. He was a very heavy boy, but I did manage to move him a couple of inches. I told him that if he had not progressed another foot with his scrubbing by the next time I came by, I would move him that far. He demanded to see the officer of the day to lodge a complaint, and so I took him. Unfortunately for Adelman, the officer was old-school RN. He told Adelman that he would give him some good advice: "get scrubbing, or it's going to be painful for you to sit down."

Following a couple more Murmansk Runs, we returned again to Plymouth, and when the D-Day invasions were being planned, we were tasked with blocking any German ships from coming around the west coast of France to attack the invasion fleet. We had a no-sail triangle set up in the channel, running from Plymouth to Brest, and across to the Ile de Batz. Any ship, aircraft or submarine entering the triangle would be fired upon if they did not have IFF.

IFF was an identification signal transmitted by Allied ships and aircraft. Unfortunately, there were many instances of allied aircraft returning from missions over occupied Europe that had been shot up so badly that their IFF transmitters were not functioning. In these cases, when we could not make a visual identification on the aircraft, we were forced to shoot them down.

On many nights during this period, we saw a lot of ferocious action, much of which has already been written about. Instead, I will relate two instances of friendly fire here.

Bunny *******, they say, is Woodstock's most decorated veteran. We disagree, but I claim that I got him his medal. He was in charge of radar on board HMCS Skeena, a River class destroyer. As she was escorting a convoy from Halifax to Plymouth, she (as well as the rest of the convoy) somehow ended up off-course and in the triangle. For whatever reason, she was not transmitting an IFF signal. We opened fire on her. Skeena sustained very heavy damage. Her bridge was blown off, and her captain, all crew in the bridge, and many below decks were killed. A sister ship outside the triangle broke radio silence (something which was practically never done, for security reasons) in order to let everyone know that Skeena had been hit, and we ceased firing. Everyone felt horrible for days, if not weeks – the area was high-traffic, though, and it was easy for ships out of station to be mistaken for enemy vessels without the IFF signal. IFF was all-important.

Bunny minimizes his role in saving crewmen that day, but it must have been a major one, because he was the only crew member decorated, and was given a medal for bravery.

The other incident that I want to relate is once against the result of poor navigation. A newly-commissioned American light cruiser (the USS Something-or-other) had been sent to join our group in order to learn battle manoeuvers. She was not equipped with IFF, and had been ordered to stay in the rear and not participate, only observe. For whatever reason, she dropped out of station and sailed directly into the triangle. HMS Ashanti called it in first, and she and Huron both opened up. We scored several hits on her. Fortunately for her, she was new and very fast, and when we saw that she was heading for England, we ceased firing. Upon arrival in Plymouth, we were able to see just how accurate our radar gunnery was.

D-Day came on June 6, 1944, and I vividly remember the gliders being towed over head, loaded with Canadian, British and American paratroopers, and all heading for France. I thought then (and still do) that they were the bravest bunch that ever there was. The air force could offer them protection from the Luftwaffe, but they were subjected to heavy anti-aircraft fire on their way behind the enemy lines. The mortality rate was exceptionally high.

With the French coast secured, and the air force in control of the skies, we were no longer needed. We spent some time screening the channel, and got into some more firefights, but eventually, some River class destroyers took over for us in the channel, and we were sent back to Scapa Flow. As we set out, word came that a pack of submarines had left Norway, and heading for the Bay of Biscay. We, Haida, and a few others from the 10th Destroyer Flotilla were ordered to meet them, and we eventually did, with the help of an anti-submarine frigate group.

The results were excellent, with an enemy surrender and prisoners taken. We had, however, used a lot of fuel in the process, and so we headed for the Azores to refuel. The Azores belonged to Portugal, and as such, they were neutral. After refueling, we learned that the U-boats we had been hunting had been there to refuel shortly before we caught them. This same thing happened once when I was on the Drumheller as well -- we refueled in the Azores after some U-boats had done the same (on that occasion, Jimmy ***** traded my only blanket for a bottle of rum, only telling me after the fact). Not long after that, Rayner left us and was replaced by another excellent commander, Groos.

We returned to Scapa and escorted our last Russian convoy in April, 1945. We celebrated VE Day at Scapa, and then took the surrender of the German navy at Trondheim as part of the liberation force for Norway. It was an odd experience: we stood on the dock taking the German surrender while they marched their troops to us through the city, fully armed. We were not carrying any substantial weaponry at all. They desperately needed the guns, though, for had they not been armed, the Norwegians would have seen to it that not one of them made it to the prisoner ships alive. As they walked up the gangplanks to get onto the ships, they simply tossed their guns behind them.

The Pacific war was still going on, and Commander Groos was ordered to form a crew for the Pacific theatre. RCN officers and crew were not given a choice, as they were permanent force. When I was called to see Groos, I told him that I was not going to volunteer, and explained why: when the war in Europe looked like it was winding down, Henri Breault (my brother-in-law, and the man who would go on to lead the development of the childproof medicine cap) went to the University of Western Ontario and put in my application for medical school. He had sent me the forms some time before. Groos was not happy, but he did agree that I had a legitimate reason for not volunteering.

We got to Halifax, and Huron was scheduled for a refit. Volunteers were given leave, and only a skeleton crew remained. I was the buffer. Those RCNVR who were not volunteering for the Pacific theatre were being discharged. I had not been told to go to Stadacona for discharge, and when I went to see Groos, he told me that I had been classified under 'essential personnel', and would have to go to the Pacific. So there I was, a volunteer, but with no leave, no discharge, and ultimately in the same boat as the permanent force members. I tried everything: first the Catholic padre, then the Protestant one. Neither of them were able to help me. Then I met Tommy Dent He was in Halifax on a frigate, and had volunteered to fight in the Pacific. His father was the perennial member of parliament for Oxford County, and the largest farm owner (the Dent cow still stands guard today on Highway 2 entering Woodstock, Ontario).

Tommy did not want to go back to the farm yet. He had joined the navy when I did, had gone to Western for radar, and had almost as much sea time as I did (though not on destroyers). We decided to go and see Commander Groos. He felt that it might be reasonable for Tommy to take my place, and he spoke with the Admiralty. I was subsequently told that the idea was not acceptable. I could not get out. I started considering what other career I might have, if not medicine.

Before it became a real issue, though, the Japanese surrendered. The war was over. I went to Groos, and asked for my discharge. I was shocked when he said no. He said "I am not sending you to Stadacona, I am sending you on leave. You have been treated so badly that you can go on leave, and the navy can keep paying you until you get to university, and take veteran's allowance payments." I will never, ever forget that.

An aside: more than fifty years later, when my grandson talked me into applying for my records and I was dealing with Holly at Veterans' Affairs in Kirkland Lake, Groos' decision would come to a head. After weeks of Holly phoning me steadily, trying to find my records, I told her to forget it. Her answer was "no way, I've sweated over this for more than a week, you cannot back out now." Finally she called and told me she had found all of my files, and that I was registered as being in the navy, but never discharged. I figured that I must be rather rich after all of those years of back pay, but she simply laughed and said "Rich? On navy pay?"

When I finally got my papers, someone had written in a date of discharge -- the date of the Japanese surrender. However, my 2343 papers were not given to me. Holly told me that in order to obtain them, I needed to prove that I was who I claimed to be. I would have to produce my birth certificate (which stated I was born in Walkerville, a town that no longer exists, eighty years ago). I talked to Holly's superior and was able to work out a compromise: I would need to appear before a judge and swear, before witnesses, that I was who I said I was. So on a Tuesday, at the usual post-meeting Men's Club luncheon, I appeared in front of my friend, a judge, held my hand up, and swore to my identity. It seemed silly, but I got my 2343 papers.