The morning visit

Nice morning, today. Went for a good walk. Found myself in an old neighbourhood near by. Stopped by my old friend John’s house and rapped at the back door.

“Hey, John, feel like some company?”
“That you, Jim? Come on in.”

John was sitting at the kitchen table. He is alone now. Has been for three years. John is eighty nine. Looks a lot younger.

“What’s up, John?”
“Ah, nothing Jim. Just sitting reading the latest Legion Magazine. Did you see this one?”
“Yeah, just read it the other day. Good article on HMCS Levis.”
“Just reading that now Jim.”

John was in the Royal Canadian Navy during the war. Just a young man when he joined up in ’41.
“Jesus, Jim, I can’t believe it is damn near 70 years since I went in.”

We chat about this and that. John laments being alone. “This isn’t so good, Jim. All my friends are gone. Wife gone, even my in-laws are gone.”

“Do you keep in touch with anybody you sailed with?”
“Shit, Jim, they are all gone too. Ever show you my rec room? Full of stuff. Come on down to the basement.”

We go down the steps. John is pretty sure-footed for pushing 90. “Christ we used to have some great parties down here years ago,” he says as he flicks the light switch to on. The bar lights up. Faded pictures of young men in navy uniforms, pennants, ships’ crests; citations on the wall, beautiful pen and ink sketch of his first ship, HMCS Skeena.

We talk. He points out badges and crests. “You were on the Skeena when she went down, weren’t you John?”
“Yes. Christ, fifteen of our boys were lost that night for no bloody good reason at all. The old man told us to abandon ship when we didn’t need to abandon ship.”

His Skeena was a Canadian River Class destroyer. Delivered from England in 1931. Saw a lot of convoy duty and had shared in the killing of a sub. Took part in the Normandy landings, patrolling the Channel for twenty-four hours before the landings.

October 24th, 1944 she was employed with the Escort Group 11. Nice waters. October, just south of Iceland. Great! That afternoon an Arctic gale came roaring down and caught the group on the high seas. They headed for the safety of Reykjavik Harbour in Iceland and by 11 pm (2300 hrs) they were anchored between Engey and Videy islands.

“Our anchors dragged and we were thrown onto the rocks some hundred or so yards off Videy. We were taking a hell of a pounding but we were really quite secure on the rocks. We couldn’t get a line ashore but we felt if we could ride out the night we would get rescued in the morning but the old man gave the call to abandon ship. The Carley floats were dropped over the side and some of the boys got down in them and tried to get away from the ship and the rocks. The waves just picked them up and smashed them into the rocks. Some of the boys tried to swim away but they were caught up and were either tossed on the rocks and died or just plain drowned.

"After about 15 minutes of that the old man cancelled the abandon ship. There was nothing we could do for our mates. They were gone in minutes. Next morning some Icelanders got a line to us and we got ashore. I wound up in the back of a vehicle and somebody handed me a glass of gin and hot water. I didn’t stop at the one glass. I drank the whole f--king bottle! Woke up in the American base hospital. The American doc came by and said, ‘Lad, if I’d known you were drunk and not in shock I wouldn’t have let you in my hospital.’ I was a little ashamed.”

“How many mates did you say were lost that night, John?”
“Fifteen, Jim. One from St.Catharines. Did you know there was four of us from St.Catharines on that ship, Jim? We lost Kenny Stewart that night. I’m the only one left now.”

We went back to the kitchen. Shoot the breeze a while longer. “Gotta get going John.”
“Come on back again soon, Jim.”

I leave John. He’s an old man. He has young memories. I’ll stop in again next week.