Navigating in a Storm
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- Medium: Video
- Owner: Veterans Affairs Canada
- Duration: 5:15
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More Clips
1. Relationships With the Crew
2. Becoming an Officer of the Watch
3. Importance of the Merchant Navy
Details
Navigating in a Storm
During storms, the men had to take major precautions to ensure that the ship didn’t sink under the weight of the ice accumulating on its wires.
André Guindon
Mr. Guindon was born in Ville-Marie, in Témiscamingue county, Quebec. He entered military service by going to the offices of HMCS Montcalm in Quebec City in 1942. After three years of university military training at the Canadian Officers’ Training Corps (COTC), he attended Kings College naval academy in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He enlisted in the Navy on a corvette assigned to protect Merchant Navy ships from enemy submarine attacks. He provides interesting insights about the importance of the Merchant Navy.
Transcription
Navigating in a storm
The weather in December, January, February and March was as bad as the submarines. And it was dangerous. We had to de-ice the ships, otherwise we would have lost a lot of them. If the ship wasn’t de-iced it would tip. It would be weighed down by the ice. Everyone had to pitch in, officers, sailors. When we came back via the north, northeast of Newfoundland and there was a storm, it would last 24 hours. Everyone had to tie themselves down. You couldn’t walk on the decks, you had to walk crouched down holding on to the wires. Everyone, officers and men.
The most difficult crossing
Coming back from the old country once, we were hit by three storms. Instead of taking two weeks, 20 or 22 days, we were at sea for 32 days. There was absolutely nothing left to eat, not even any dog biscuits. That’s what we called them, dog biscuits. But it didn’t happen often, just the one trip. We were pretty happy to get back. Once we got to Newfoundland, a lot of people were waiting on the dock, because in the three storms, I think five or six out of 40 ships made it back. Some ships ended up in Bermuda, they found them scattered all over the place. But only one got to Newfoundland. The others were . . . in Halifax I think. But that only happened the one time. It was the worst, that crossing.
Interviewer – What was the feeling coming back to port in that kind of situation?
Freedom! Feeling . . . that you wanted to rest, because we hadn’t been on watch and then off watch for eight-hour shifts. We were on continuous watch, all the time. No, things like that . . . the only break we had during the storms was that the submarines didn’t surface. We didn’t have to fight off the submarines. They couldn’t surface, so things were pretty calm on that score. It wasn’t an ordinary storm, it was a huge storm in June, July, August, but the subs couldn’t surface so we got a break from that. If they can’t surface, they can’t attack.
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