Remembering Battle

I never knew what war was like until this day. Many of my friends were sent out to assist the Canadian Navy vessels in Northern Ireland in the Battle of the Atlantic. I heard about it back when I was training on HMCS Conestoga in Galt, Ontario; after all, the battle had been going on for a couple of years until I was finally sent to serve in Newfoundland. As the Germans started to use U-boat wolf packs to attack convoys in the mid-Atlantic, it was evident that they would need to free shore-based sailors and that is where Wrens had their time to shine. Boy was it a whole different scene. Our ship, the HMCS Weyburn, was a corvette vessel and its job was to provide convoy escort between Newfoundland and Britain. It was a very difficult task. Captain James Sawyer praised me and a few other Wrens for our skills in communication and intelligence operators. Women were never permitted to serve on board of ships but I did get a chance to work in cooperation with Captain Sawyer. After the war ended, I remember him telling me that over 7000 women served in the Royal Canadian Navy, and their determination was inspiring and significant in the victory for the Allies in the Battle of the Atlantic. Do you remember important battles that happened during the war? How did you contribute to them and how has it impacted your life to this day?

Remembering friends that I made/lost

It took almost three years after the war began when the women’s division was created for the Royal Naval Service. And boy, there were people, especially men, who did not know how to react to have women aboard. I remember my former employer believed that all women were prostitutes and I took exception to that. Yet as the war progressed, men were starting to feel more at ease with this new concept. Of course many of the friends I made were women, but I had made some remarkable friends that were men. A great friend of mine, Captain F.L. Houghton, knew I was a Wren with my blue stripes on my uniform, in contrast to his gold. He wasn’t so fond of me at first, with the issue of being a woman at war, but he soon saw my dedication and noticed I had always accomplished every task as he asked. He was in fact the man who introduced me to my husband, and I still keep in touch with Captain Houghton to this day. One of the first friends I made was Commodore Percy Nelles. He was very passionate about his work and never judged me once. A few months after I came, he was called to go on a fighting ship, HCMS Ottawa, a destroyer vessel, to help Britain in the Battle of the Atlantic. After the war, I learnt that out of the 341 Canadian fighting ships, his was one of the 21 ships that were lost. I was devastated. Do you remember some of the friends that you have made? What about the ones that you lost? If so, how did you feel when you heard about the news?