Bluenose 1, Nelson's Navy, Famous Stoker, Rug Beater
At the beginning of his Navy memoirs, written in long-hand in 1975, my father writes the following:
[Bluenose, 1938: Photo credit Wikipedia Commons]
As a young boy I was crazy about ships... My mother needed a new door sill for our home so she somehow procured a lovely board from the lumber yard. I stole the board and Sonny Bucholtz and I hollowed it out and used it for the main part of our first ship, the Bluenose. We got old car batteries, melted the lead and molded it to fit the bottom of the boat as a keel. Built masts and yardarms, made sails and halyards, and her maiden voyage at Vandenburg's swimming pool was a terrific success. She was painted blue and white.
In a later version of the story he adds a fateful conversation between himself and his mother. She asks about the board's whereabouts. He says it's in the sailboat. She claims she "saved and saved for that board." And my father concludes by recalling "the greatest pealing of my life ("I don't remember what she beat me with, maybe the rug beater"), but I lived and I loved my mother very much."
[Author's note: "A rug beater is much bigger than,
e.g., my mother's weapon of choice - a fly swatter"]
Apparently my father's love for ships was able to withstand a significant 'pealing', and, fortified by forgiveness, he reveals the basis of his love for ships and the sea just a few paragraphs later when he says he "always wanted to be a sailor because my dad, who passed away when I was ten, had been a sailor, and my idol was Admiral Lord Nelson. I read and read about him and many other navy stories, mostly about war actions. Zeebrugge was one. My dad had been a stoker for thirteen years."
[L - R: Roland Harrison (my father's brother), Kay F., my father Doug,
Roland Sr. and Alice Harrison (father's parents), Dave Tait (father's uncle)]
[Action at Zeebrugge, April 1918: Picture credit Memorials Portsmouth]
Without a doubt one could say my father's head was turned toward ships and the sea at a very young age, even before his teen years and about 90 years ago, but there were more things astir in his mind, heart and stomach on the day in the early 1980s he declared he wanted to be buried at sea.
He joined the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve (RCNVR) as a young man 21 years of age, trained in Hamilton and Halifax, volunteered for the Combined Operations organization before participating in active duty, and trained on assault landing craft on beaches in Scotland and southern England in preparation for the raid on Dieppe and later invasions of North Africa, Sicily and Italy.
["My father 'lost his first mates at Dieppe'"]
He lost his first mates at Dieppe, faced enemy snipers while unloading barges on the shores of North Africa, witnessed "utter death and chaos" and lived inside caves in Sicily, wrote about the devastation of ports in Italy, and uttered hearty helloes and sad good-byes to more than a few girlfriends in the UK and sturdy pals in RCNVR. He returned to Canada in fit shape in December 1943, volunteered for more duties with Combined Operations, travelled to Vancouver Island and said it was heaven. And knowing my father, his memories were likely quite vivid and unshakeable, some in very good ways, others terrible.
["My father (left), Chuck Rose and other Navy boys played
some ball while stationed at The Spit on Vancouver Island"]
some ball while stationed at The Spit on Vancouver Island"]
["My father and Chuck Rose at a Navy Reunion"]
Though I can now rattle off where he trained, served and drank pints with his friends while on leave in London in 1942, it hasn't been that way for long. I was very slow to pick up my father's trail.
Why, I didn't even bother to bury him at sea until seven years after his death.
More to follow.
Two credited photos
Other photos by GH
Link to Faint Footsteps WW2 (2)
No comments:
Post a Comment