The Exploding Sea
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- Medium: Video
- Owner: Veterans Affairs Canada and Testaments of Honour
- Duration: 1:31
- Copyright / Permission to Reproduce
Details
The Exploding Sea
Roch Daoust was a seaman on the HMCS Fundy, a minesweeper. He describes how the Germans would lay mines in the Atlantic.
Roch Daoust
Roch D’Aoust was born on April 23, 1924, in Alfred, Ontario. When the war broke out, he worked for the war industry in Québec: ammunition manufacturing in Brownsburg, nitro-cotton manufacturing in Valleyfield and shipbuilding in Montréal. Then in 1944, he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Navy. He did his basic training on HMCS Donnacona and was later transferred to Cornwallis, N.S. to complete his training. He then shipped out on board HMCS Fundy, a minesweeper. The Fundy headed a group of three small ships that made sure passage was free and safe for the large convoys of ships sailing between Canada and Europe. In addition to destroying mines, the Fundy saved a number of casualties from passenger ships sunk by enemy submarines. Finally, he joined the crew of the HMCS Sioux, a destroyer intended to fight Japan but the war ended while the Sioux was on mission in the Pacific.
Transcription
The Germans used anchors. They knew Halifax as well as we did. Submarines were detected just, just outside Halifax, you understand. They anchored mines, they would anchor them and there was a rope that would hold the mine 20, 25 feet below sea level – you know, a boat goes deep, part of it is under water – so it would hit.
But we would go around with our float attached to a cable dragging behind our boat, like that. So our cable could catch the rope holding the mine and the mine would be dragged along by our cable. It was a steel cable, you know. And when the mine would get to the float, there was always a sailor there with his binoculars – we had very good binoculars – and when he saw something reach the float he would say, “Captain, article at the float.” Then the captain would tell him what to do.
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