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

I Want to be Buried at Sea (1)

I Want to be Buried at Sea 

[I attend a family reunion with my parents, Turkey Point, circa 1978]

I did not develop a strong interest in my father's 'Navy Days' until 2010. I can easily recall, however, a few specific events in the summer and fall of that year that opened the door to my search for details that continues strongly to this day. My father's interest in 'all things Navy' goes back much farther, to the early 1930s at the very least, and very likely the 1920s.

To assist with the process of going back about 90 years, I present a brief excerpt from 'Bury Me At Sea', a short story I composed and published recently:

- Early 1980s - 

As I recall, my wife Pat and I travelled from London to see my parents in Norwich, Ontario on a very lovely day, to have a Sunday visit and enjoy supper together under pleasant circumstances. Our two sons were old enough to send off to a nearby school ground to play on their own (and if they wandered downtown, less than two blocks away, that was fine too), a roast was in the oven, a store-bought pie was on the kitchen counter and cups of tea with cookies were offered and welcomed after the hour drive from our home to that of my parents, Doug and Edith.

Initially, the visit went perfectly well. It helped that, with my wife and I in our early thirties and my parents in their early sixties, an afternoon could be comfortably filled with lots of common small talk. We gabbed about the boys - we just had to look out the window to be sure that neither had fallen off the monkey bars and landed on his head - our family cars, changes to our houses. My teaching career was going well and so were the Blue Jays. Easy breezy afternoon, as some would say.

['Sailor's Statue' stands outside Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, Halifax] 

Then my father handed me a photo postcard of the 'Sailor's Statue' (Sackville St., Halifax) and said, very passionately, "I want to be buried at sea."

He could not have produced a more devastating effect on the conversation had he tossed a hand grenade under the dining room table where we sat. Pat and I didn't know what to say.

More to follow.

Link to Welcome to Faint Footsteps, WW2

Photos GH

Welcome to Faint Footsteps, WW2

Blog Background 2

 [Buryl McIntyre, Doug Harrison. RCNVR, Combined Operations, 1941 - 45]

Once I caught the bug and began to read and learn more about my father's WW2 experiences I realized I was a very fortunate man. Not only did I have 40 pages of his hand-written notes but several of the columns he'd written for his hometown weekly, the Norwich Gazette. And on my own bookshelf I discovered copies of books about Combined Operations, written by Canadian WW2 veterans, in which a few of my father's stories were included. Inside the front cover of one book was a list of page numbers, compiled by my wife, where I could find Father's contributions.

[Hand-written memoirs: Comments re invasion of Sicily, 1943.

"Shrapnel and bombs just rained down"]

I believe my father's story is a good one and will be of interest perhaps to more than a few people whose father or grandfather is also a war veteran. I can support some stories with photographs, thanks to my father and his willingness to list names and places on the back at times. I can support others with my own photos, taken during trips to Halifax, Vancouver Island and Irvine and Inveraray, Scotland, where a few precious, sometimes faint, reminders or artifacts still reveal that Canadian men and women served their countries in various war efforts.

[Stoker Katanna gave his hammock to SLt. Rodgers on their way to Sicily, 1943.

The hammock was returned in 1985, and resides in Navy Museum, Esquimalt, BC]

Developing and maintaining this site will likely be a gradual, lengthy process but in twenty years time it will be top rate. To guarantee success, I invite readers to submit their own stories, photographs, memoirs, and comments related to personal involvement in war activities or to involvement of family members. I will make every effort to display materials in an appropriate, thorough manner.

And to others who have 'caught the bug' I wish good sailing!

Gord Harrison

Link to Blog Background 1

Photos by GH