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

Welcome to Faint Footsteps, WW2

Blog Background 1

[Lt. McFetrick, C.O., and SLt. Galoway lead the class of '41

across the C.N.R. bridge on MacNab St., Hamilton, Ontario.] 

My father started his military march as a raw recruit in the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve in Hamilton, 1941. He continued his training in Halifax, volunteered for the Combined Operations organization and soon marched in Scotland and England, where he prepared for the Dieppe raid and Allied invasions of North Africa, Sicily and Italy. Before completing his military march he served two years at a Combined Ops training camp on Vancouver Island. He was discharged on September 5, 1945, after declining the call to participate in the Pacific theatre of war, and one day before his 25th birthday.

Now, about seventy years after his discharge - 'honourable, with no black marks' - I am doing the marching, so to speak, as I follow his faint footsteps across Canada and abroad to learn more about his adventures, and to discover more about the man, now deceased, that I daily recall as a tireless, honest worker and good, supportive father. 

I am also doing a bit of writing related to my travels, research and discoveries as other children of war veterans have done before me. One might say I have 'caught the bug' after discovering my father's hand-written Navy memoirs in a tired-looking file folder in November, 2011. I read one page, then another, and because I was ready at the time to read more and dig deeper I did so. And I haven't stopped. 

'Caught the bug,' indeed.

Photo from HMCS Star, A Naval Reserve History

Photo donated by my father, Doug Harrison