I Build Me a Boat Part 1 (11A)

I Build Me a Boat

[The S.S. Silver Walnut, ready for the toss, at Mackerel Cove, N.S.]

In 2005 I rode a small motorcycle on a short camping trip on the Bruce Peninsula. The following year I rode a somewhat larger motorcycle on a somewhat longer camping trip (about 1,300 kilometres in all) in and around the Ottawa and Algonquin Park region. And in 2007, on a somewhat larger bike (four times larger than the first one), I travelled over 3,300 kilometres on a very scenic journey to Thunder Bay and safely back home to London, camping at a different spot along the north shore of Lake Superior each night.  

I grew more comfortable upon a motorcycle with each passing mile and shortly after I purchased my current motorcycle in 2009, the largest bike to date, the penny dropped. I could carry father's ashes to the Atlantic Ocean and fulfill my promise to him with my own hand. I had also grown quite accustomed to making things in my backyard workshop over the years and I quickly took it upon myself to build a container in which to transport and deposit his ashes into the sea. Why, with all my experience, what could possibly go wrong? 

I have no doubt had I tried to accomplish the same tasks seven years earlier, shortly after my father had passed away, I would have failed so miserably. I know this because, when I did travel to the East Coast in 2010 with a wee wooden boat strapped onto the back of my Yamaha, I came very, very close - on a hot, sunny afternoon in June - to pitching the entire project into a dark, forbidding place in the woods on Pennant Point. On that day I reached, mentally and physically, an all-time low, and fortunately, subsequently, a high as well.  

[Sambro, Crystal Beach and Mackerel Cove are SW of Halifax, NS]

A Wee Wooden Boat

 [The woodworking process starts with a sketch]

 [Sturdy white cedar]

 [Ashes and messages in a bottle ready to go aboard]

 [Painted and varnished]

[All aboard that's going aboard, June 2010]

More to follow.

Link to Faint Footsteps, WW2 (10)

For more photos related to this episode, please link to I Build Me a Boat Part 2 (11B)

Photos by GH

Seven Years Went By (10)

Seven Years Went By

[Time passes...]

How do I explain the fact that over seven years passed between the time I promised to bury my father at sea (and hid half his cremated remains in my wife's canning pot) and the time I packed his ashes into a wooden boat, motorcycled over 2,000 kilometres to Halifax and tossed the boat into the Atlantic Ocean? I say, with some difficulty and embarrassment, and a complicated Venn diagram.

Some may ask, "Did you just forget the promise?"

The answer to that question is no. I did leave my father's ashes inside a canning pot for many years but soon after he was buried in Norwich I began to educate myself about how to bury a person at sea. I will share here some of what I recall from visits to various sites on the internet.

First, there were at the time (2003 - 2004) burial services offered associated with the Royal Canadian Navy and some other private enterprises. Their services required, in part, that I ship ashes to a registered pastor on Canada's west coast, then later fly to Canada's east coast when notified of the burial date, board a ship, go out to sea, take part in a prepared service, and, at the conclusion, be content with a commemorative map of the location of burial.

Second, as I recall now from imperfect memories, most of what I read and learned left me dissatisfied, especially since, without great effort and expense, no member of my family would ever be able to visit the burial site in the future. So, disgruntled, I likely shut off the computer and went for a long run to clear my mind. And by long run I mean an 8 or 10 or 20-mile-long haul in preparation for an upcoming marathon.

I think it is worth mentioning here that I was a long-distance runner from 1995 to 2006. Until my last marathon in the city of Boston in April, 2005, a good deal of my spare time over the course of about ten to eleven years was spent running here, there and everywhere in preparation for half- and full-marathons and the like.

[At the finish line in Boston, 2005]

As well, once I retired from teaching in June, 2002, I increased the intensity of my running schedule, because of an unshakeable desire to qualify for the famed Boston marathon. That being said, I also found time to write a weekly column for a local community newspaper (and, like running, for a period of about ten years), from the fall of 2002 to the summer of 2012. And, as the busy-ness of my running routine tapered off after the 2005 Boston event and my interest in writing solidified, two other activities began to make more demands on my time.

I bought a small motorcycle in 2004 (250cc Suzuki), with help from the wages and tip money I earned at a local coffee shop, and worked my way up - as I travelled more miles annually and as my confidence in motorcycling grew - to somewhat larger and larger bikes until I purchased my current bike (1100cc Yamaha) in 2009, upon which I've biked to Halifax twice, the first time to bury my father at sea in 2010.

 [I motorcycled to the East Coast in 2010 and 2014]

 [I spend productive hours inside the workshop each week]

[A complicated Venn diagram with a few busy facts of life]

Somewhere along the way I took an hour off from my various activities, cleaned out the dirt-floor garage attached to my house and created a small woodworking shop. I purchased a variety of saws, hammers, nails, lumber and a lathe and tried my hand at a number of woodworking projects, and to this day spend almost as many hours per week in my shop as I do on a few other activities combined.

Admittedly, forgetfulness may in fact be a factor as I try to explain a seven-year-long delay in fulfilling a promise to my father. But in 2010, a month before I biked to Halifax, I designed and assembled my first wooden boat, one that is likely still on its lengthy first and final voyage in the Atlantic Ocean.

More to follow.

[Time passes like a silent river]

Link to Faint Footsteps, WW2 (9)  

Photos GH

A Firm Promise (9)

A Firm Promise

[American troops come ashore in N. Africa, Nov. 1942, from assault landing
craft manned by Canadians in RCNVR and Combined Operations. IWM*]

Many of us know of friends or family members who made a significant mistake in the past that shapes or haunts them to this day. 'Such is life' my father would say. I made one while building a simple birdhouse in my basement that ultimately lead me to make a promise to my father. Fulfilling that promise opened doors I am passing through to this day, and, if I'm honest, and even live until I'm 105, I may look back on the mistake as one of the most remarkable, colourful events in my life.

It came 'right out of the blue. Sea blue. Navy blue'.

Not long after my father passed away I decided to build a box for his ashes (the size of a birdhouse, like one of the scores he once made himself) from century-old lumber used to construct the barn that stood behind my parents' house in Norwich. 'Rescued old lumber' is a more fitting term because the barn was partially torn down when I was notified and later arrived on the scene in my family's home town. That being said, I selected several significant boards, removed dozens of nails, then hand-sawed and painted six pieces in the basement of my house in London. In some pieces the whittled initials of my mother and siblings were present. (The initials I didn't find I carved myself to complete the 'family set').

[The barn that stood behind my family's house in Norwich]

I think Dad would have appreciated the home-grown features of the box for his remains, especially the addition of one of his own small paintings of a cardinal on the front. And, once the paint was dry, I'm sure I turned the completed project over in my hands a dozen times to admire its overall appearance before I began the last job, that is, filling it with his ashes.

I opened the tightly-sealed container from the funeral home with the help of a chisel and pulled out a heavy plastic bag of deep gray ash. I opened it gingerly, took a very curious look at its contents, lifted it slowly, tilted an open edge toward my bird box and began to pour. Within seconds I knew I was in trouble. There was far more ash in the bag than space inside the box.

And though initially I felt embarrassed by my mistake ("Gordie, did you measure and compare the volume of each container?" "No, I just guessed"), the feeling quickly passed. I was overwhelmed by another realization, one that felt completely perfect in nature.

I blurted a few words aloud. "Well, I guess you're going to get buried at sea after all, Dad."

I didn't know then how his wish would be fulfilled but I knew my words had been more than a reaction. They had formed a firm promise to my father. Somehow I would get his ashes to the sea.

I tightly sealed the painted box with as much of his remains as it would hold. It was ready for burial and looked pretty close to perfect.

And what about the plastic container with the remainder of his ashes? I hid it inside my wife's old canning pot, placed the pot's lid gently on top and returned the ensemble to a basement shelf. There the ashes remained - unknown to the rest of my family - until 'a grand plan' crystalized inside my head.

And for those who are counting, seven years went by.

[At burial site: Jane, Gordon, Dale, Kim, Liane. Spring, 2003]

Wartime Companions in Combined Operations

End of Duty, Esquimalt, Vancouver Island, Summer of 1945

Back, L-R. Don Westbrook, Chuck Rose, Joe Spencer

Front, L-R. Joe Watson, Doug Harrison, Art Warrick

Link to Faint Footsteps, WW2 (8)

*Photo credit Imperial War Museum, UK

Unattributed Photos by GH

I Bury my Father at Sea (8)

I Bury my Father at Sea

[My father (centre), at Arzeu, North Africa: Photo credit - IWM*]

Some time in the future I will visit Sicily, Malta, Italy and other locations on the North African coast, e.g., Beach Z near Arzeu, about 12 miles east of Oran - if all goes well and travel doesn't cost a small fortune - all sites of hostilities and invasions in the Mediterranean Sea during World War II. As my father entered the Mediterranean for the first time on a November morning in 1942, before the invasion of the Algerian coast, he remarked on the beautiful turquoise colour of the water and added that "it was a nice sun-shiny day... what a sight to behold." And as he left for the last time in late 1943, after the invasions of Sicily and Italy, he noticed holes through the half-inch steel plates of the Queen Emma "that looked like a hole punched in butter with a hot poker, like it had just melted." He had seen Heaven, he had seen Hell, and after he passed away and I learned more about his Navy days I grew to understand why he wanted to be buried at sea.

My father died on February 6, 2003 and after I'd finished building a container for his cremated remains I made the decision, actually a promise - somewhat by accident - to take his ashes to the sea. The promise eventually was fulfilled, I travelled to Halifax and, with some difficulty, found a fitting spot on the Atlantic coast where I set the container adrift. Little did I know when I made a promise in 2003 that one journey would lead to another, then another and another and that I would get more fully drawn into my father's WW2 experiences and adventures.

[The SS Silver Walnut is ready to sail upon the waves of the Atlantic]

Though reading some of his 'Navy Days' newspaper articles and finding his hand-written Navy memoirs and moved me toward a door of discovery, the promise (made in spring, 2003) and its fulfillment (completed in summer, 2010) pushed me through it.

Spring 2003 - 

My father died in Parkwood Hospital, London on February 6, 2003, 26 months after my mother passed away, and before he died the matter concerning where he would be buried had been settled. He decided to have his ashes interred in Norwich next to his wife and not thrown upon a distant wave in the Atlantic Ocean where few, if any, of his children would ever be able to go to remember him.

How my father reached that decision is a lengthy story in itself and would include, in part, the workings of several conversations he and I had together - shortly after mother's death - while driving along country roads between Parkwood Hospital, London, and points southwest of the hospital, including his hometown, Norwich. The story would include the workings of his, at times, troubled mind concerning his love for all his children, his time at sea and the life-long companions he'd made as a very young man while serving upon barges during World War 2. And after the car rides, conversations, and thoughts about his children and wartime companions his mind worked to make several important decisions regarding where mother should be buried, and the type of grave stone to be purchased, and whether she would be buried alone or with him, according to her wish.

A lengthy story, indeed, for another time. For now just allow me to say my father put his wife’s wishes first when he decided to be buried beside her in a Quaker Street, Norwich cemetery. And later, after his own death, he got his own heart-felt wish to be buried at sea - the wish was fulfilled under very unusual circumstances - right out of the blue. Sea blue. Navy blue.

More to follow

Link to Faint Footsteps, WW2 (7)

*Imperial War Museum, UK

Unattributed Photos by GH

The Lost Folder (7)

The Lost Folder (2)

Soon after discovering an old brown folder that contained my father's hand-written navy memoirs I read his notes from start to finish, hardly believing I knew nothing of the story. Surprises leapt up at me from the very first page.

     Foreward (sic)

     Many Canadian citizens do not know about the active part taken by the

     Royal Canadian Volunteer Reserve Navy in Combined Operations overseas

     during World War II. Here is a story regarding the Canadian Navy on navy 

     barges on the operations against Dieppe, N. Africa, Sicily and Italy, and

     many were at D Day also.

     As a young boy I was crazy about ships. I used to make boats by folding

     paper in a certain way and then sail them on the creek. I was born

     September 6, 1920, 12 lbs. 10 ozs. 

     I was from a family of seven, three girls and four boys. My mother needed

     a new door sill for our home so she somehow procured a lovely board from

     a 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 Vandenburgs swimming pool was a terrific success. She was

     painted blue and white. I always admired the real Nova Scotian Bluenose and

     have a plastic replica in my rec room today.

     Yes, Mum found out about the board and I not only got the board,

     I got the shoe brush on my bottom.

   
     In the navy if an officer says “well done”, it is nearly the same as getting a

     citation or medal. I hope that my efforts at this story may interest someone

     enough to say “dad, well done.”

     Doug Harrison V8809

My father's memoirs started to have some impact upon me in November, 2011. I mentioned them in my own column, published on the 10th of that month, and wrote that while standing at London's Victoria Park cenotaph I would "recall some of the words from a story I've begun to read entitled 'The Naval memoirs of Leading seaman Coxswain G. D. Harrison'."

I don't call my father's story a knee-slapper or tear-jerker even though it made me laugh and cry. Considering my three year's worth of reflection I call it a door-opener. I have gone from not knowing very much at all about my father's WW2 experiences to knowing a good deal.

I also call it a life-changer because his tale has urged me to visit Halifax on Canada's east coast, Vancouver Island on the west coast, and Scotland and England in the UK, all places I may never have visited without some meaningful incentive. Plans to revisit Comox and Courtenay on Vancouver Island, once home to a Combined Operations training base, have already been made for May 2015. 

I also call father's story an eye-opener, a heart-warmer, a good, honest adventure, one that took him to hostile shores in and around the Mediterranean Sea (in 1942 - 1943), just one of the many places he would never revisit after World War II was over. 

But, what's stopping me?

More to follow.

Link to Faint Footsteps, WW2 (6)

Photos by GH

The Lost Folder (6)

The Lost Folder (1)

I have an old brown folder filled with rare treasure. It contains my father's hand-written navy memoirs. And I call it 'the lost folder' even though it was never really lost. I had it in my possession a long time but just didn't know what it contained.

For many years the brown folder sat behind a well-worn manilla folder containing copies of newspaper columns my father had written for his local newspaper. I tell about its discovery in the preface to "DAD, WELL DONE", a book I later assembled concerning my father's WW2 experiences.

     Preface:

     My dad, G. D. (Doug) Harrison (Sept. 6, 1920 - Feb. 6, 2003) contributed
     to the Norwich Gazette, his hometown weekly, for many years, and one day
     in the fall of 2011, while I looked for a particular article he had written (I
     needed a pithy quote for a Remembrance Day article of my own), I found
     a worn brown folder longing for attention. Though I knew it wasn’t what I
     was looking for, I opened it.

     Instead of a single quote about what motivated Dad to join the Merchant
     Marine, I found 46 hand-written pages - over 35 years old - that summarized,
     as well as he could remember (and he had a sharp mind up to his death), his
     involvement in World War 2. Accompanying the notes was a neatly typed
     21-page version of his familiar scrawl. I tipped my hat to my youngest sister,
     Jane Harrison, for her efforts, then set the folder aside. I wasn’t quite ready
     to dig into it. I had a deadline hanging - like a sharp Navy dirk - over my head.

     A month later I decided to gather his scattered memoirs into this small book,
     and realized soon after I began typing that I had started the task about nine years
     too late. The person I needed to talk to for more details, wanted to talk to about
     certain events, ask questions of or discuss a fine point with, was nine years dead
     and gone. Now that I want to ask, “Tell me where you were when ships were
     loading for Dieppe,” and am ready to hear the answer with some sense of
     appreciation, my dad inhabits another sphere.

     Many others will undoubtedly understand the hard lesson I learned as I typed.
     I’m certain I’m but one son in a long line of sons and daughters who waited too
     long to sit down with their parents to ask for the good, honest stories we’re now
     wanting to hear. Such is life, my dad would say.

     Fortunately, I have his hand-written memoirs, as well as his contributions to two
     books assembled by foresightful Canadian members of the Combined Operations
     organization and numerous articles he wrote and later clipped from the Norwich
     Gazette about his ‘Navy Days’. I share much of his work here.

I was 62 years of age when I put the book together and likely in some state of shock. How could 46 pages of hand-writtens memoirs have escaped my attention for so long? My hand must have skimmed over them at least a dozen times while I read his Gazette articles one after the other over the course of a few years.

Whatever the case, though the old lost folder still chides me about lost opportunities, I have it in a safe place and I've read the memoirs several times from front to back. I've written stories of my own about them, travelled with them and followed my father's trail of faint footsteps across Canada and to the United Kingdom. And I'm definitely not done with them. Only just begun.

More to follow.

Link to Faint Footsteps, WW2 (5)

Photos by GH

It Stood Us All in Good Stead (5)

It Stood Us All in Good Stead

My father's lengthy response to a questionnaire distributed to WW2 veterans in the 1990s is very enlightening to someone like me, one who came late to showing an interest in his wartime experience. However, I read his words eagerly in December 2011 while compiling his Navy memoirs and stories into book form, a full year after I'd buried him at sea, so to speak. 

I learned more about Combined Operations. I learned more about my father.

Combined Ops Insignia: "United we conquer"

__________

A Combined Ops Questionnaire (2)

I would be remiss if I didn’t speak highly of my wife and the other Combined Operations (CO) wives that I have had the pleasure to meet. It seems CO was a sound choice and we carried that on over here and chose very good partners (again for the most part). It seems that they like family too. I am favoured to be in contact with many CO Ratings and know a few of their children, good children too.

[The children of two WW2 CO veterans play together in Burgessville, 1954.

L-R: Gord Harrison, David and Susie Rose (front), Lannie and Dale Harrison]

I don’t think volunteering for CO was different from General Services. It gave ratings a variety of things to do and even today, variety is the spice of life. I like challenges. I enjoy giving them a whirl. They are learning experiences. No need to be afraid, try, try again. We helped each other in so many different ways in CO and we were all different. I like the concept of helping one another, and I repeat, I saw a great deal of that in CO. Honesty as well. The old basic ways would help Canada out of many of her problems today, CO ways too. Yes, all for one and one for all. I would rather volunteer to give money to government than have it taken. We Ratings at times with no Officers around, governed ourselves and we did well too. We weren’t being ruled. The Canadian Ratings were a responsible group. I respect authority but I don’t have to like it. I feel I can conduct myself properly and in the face of it all CO Ratings did conduct themselves well in a world they knew damn little about for a long while.

["CO Ratings stayed near or on landing craft while training in England.
L-R: Don Linder, X, X, Doug Harrison (peeking out from behind),
Jim Malone, Don Westbrook". Photo Credit - Lloyd Evans, RCNVR] 

Tides, winds, currents, ropes, motors, oil, cold dark cramped quarters. We learnt in a hurry in CO and it stood us all in good stead for after the war. A strange foreign world and we made it work. The officers, like ourselves, must have seen the ratings growing as they gained experience. As Montgomery said about the Canadian soldiers, “It wasn’t a matter of how, just when.”

I remember in Sicily being under fed, working long hours but we just kept plugging. Golly, some of us had lovely rib cages! I would forget we were scared. Frank Herring’s constipation became less a problem as the days and nights wore on. I stole a shipment of rum consigned for the officers’ mess in the stoke hole of our American LCM. Some can sleep on an empty stomach but sleep with rum is automatic. We would wake up in the morning with our blankets covered with shrapnel. But the Cave was found and oh, the rum was soon gone. Next shipment please.

In Sicily the 80th Flotilla was like a bunch of barn banties. We scrounged for our lives - well no, we didn’t eat worms although I suspect some had them, and if they did, I don’t know how the hell worms survived on our rations. Things got better. We made Kuntz our cook. Pomadore and bully beef, bully beef and pomadori. I sure missed Norwich water to drink but I missed my Mother more.

The war, not Combined Ops, took away my simple pleasures which I missed horribly - my poultry, sports, car, flowers, garden. Would you call my girl friend a simple pleasure? But I got them all back in due course - even the poultry.

I never did and I never will like good-byes but I had to say good-bye to a lot of Combined Ops guys one way or another. But I will never forget them.

__________

[Lest we forget: Doug Harrison, front and centre (right). Circa 1980]

I find the above photo poignant for a couple of reasons. It speaks to my father's desire to remember his friends lost during WW2 and appreciate the efforts of all veterans, men and women, alive or dead. And it was while I was preparing a 'Remembrance Day' newspaper column in November 2011 that I came across his hand-written memoirs about his days in RCNVR and Combined Operations.

That day was momentous.

More to follow.

Please link to Faint Footsteps, WW2 (4)

Unattributed photos GH

Combined Ops Questionnaire (4)

A Combined Ops Questionnaire

["My father gave me this print 25 years ago. I learned

its significance to him only about 5 years ago"]

I was slow to pick up my father's trail concerning his duties during WW2 even though I had access to articles he had written in his hometown weekly, The Norwich Gazette, and possessed books that contained some of his stories and remembrances about his participation in the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve and Combined Operations organization. I may have given his efforts a quick glance but never read them thoughtfully.

His responses to a Combined Ops questionnaire (the questions are not available but some are easily guessed), distributed to veterans in the mid-1990s, only came to my awakening attention in 2011. Had I been asked then what my father did in the Navy I would have said something about service in the Merchant Marines. And I would have been way out in left field.

["Father's responses are found in St. Nazaire to Singapore, page 387"]

__________

WHAT I GOT FROM COMBINED OPS 

Combined Operations (CO) did not affect me religiously. I had a good grounding in religion as a child and youth. Yes I prayed, and still do.

I haven’t a single misconduct in my service and I wonder why because I didn’t conform well in the service and I still don’t. I question just about everything and not just because it keeps my mind active. Looking back I feel I was as good as any Seaman in my flotilla and I retained a sense of humour. I wasn’t a loner then and I’m still not a loner. I say “Hello” to everyone, strangers and all and I said “Hello” in the Service (not much to Officers!). Friends are a very important part of my life as they were in CO too. I know that when I say “Hello” to some folks they wonder openly, “Who is that grey haired old geek?” but people are so tied up in their problems today, taxes, etc., that they are all becoming psychologically affected... a good sense of humour comes in handy here.

I questioned Dieppe then and still do. Some of the high ranking officers and, or, their families swam and frolicked on those very beaches. (After all, those beaches have been there a longtime. They took revenge by calling it, “The Poor Man’s Monte Carlo.”) Those planners knew those beaches so they must have had a good reason other than any that have been written about. Perhaps one objective was to quiet the Canadian Army which was restless and having discipline problems - spill blood - it will quiet things down and sober them up. 

["Dad (right) with nephew Dougie, brother Roll and Ruth (Roll's wife)" circa 1941]

["Father and son, circa 1980"]

I liked the family aspect of CO (Canadian). I believe strongly in the family unit today (backbone of the Nation). So you and I wonder what’s wrong? It’s right before our eyes. Independent, greedy, surly, almost to the point of being ungovernable. But we shared in CO and although we were alone much of the time there was discipline and there was a feeling shared by most. “Together we stick, parted we’re stuck.”

I was fond of (Officer) Mr. Koyl who said, “Don’t bother me with the petty stuff, (Officer) Mr. Wedd. Let’s get the job done and go home.” I asked him one day, “Sir, do you mind us calling you Uncle Jake?” “No Harrison, I don’t. On the contrary, I’m honoured.”

For the most part, many of us grew up while overseas and were different in several ways than when we went over to England in (January) 1942 and upon our return in (December) 1943. Every CO Rating I have met since the war, there is the odd exception, became a responsible citizen of Canada and made a valuable contribution the same as in war time. We took chances during the war and in peace time - call them risks if you like. They were a special group and still are in my eyes. I learned to depend on my comrades in arms of CO and I still do. They would never let you down and the reverse is true. Joe Spencer, Chuck Rose and families and our family played together while the children were young. “Hey, there is a storm around and they’ve darkened Ship.” I miss those guys that for one reason or another I do not or cannot see any more. The bonds forged in war are forever forged.

["Members of Combined Operations in Comox, Vancouver Is., 1944-45.

Chuck Rose (front, second from left, F2), Doug H. (F3), Joe Spencer (F5)"]

I learned in Combined Ops to think for myself. I suppose that strengthened my nonconformity. All of us, Officers and all, were as green as grass when we went overseas. I’m as green as grass about some things today but at least I can Think and Question. CO didn’t take a thing from me. I have no regrets of my time in the Service. It taught me and gave me loyal friends. We don’t hear the word loyal today too much. It gave me experience in many ways. It was “family” and as I’ve said before, I still believe in family.

__________

More to follow.

Link to Faint Footsteps (3)

Photos GH