A Bloody War: One Man's Memories of the Canadian Navy, 1939-1945 (Great War Stories)

From a tug in Halifax Harbor to a destroyer in Norwegian fiords, from the balmy Caribbean to the frozen reaches of Murmansk, Hal Lawrence spins an engaging personal account of a young man growing up at sea. Witness to the drama of a deadly contest for supremacy in the Atlantic, he commemorates with genuine affection the dedicated men with whom he served and the fighting navy which shaped them. Lawrence was eighteen years old when he joined the Royal Canadian Navy. After weeks of humiliating basic training, he was given his first appointment to an examination vessel, the humble tugboat Andre Dupre. There followed a thorough if severe education in the seaman's art, months in watchful coastal patrols, and years on board the legendary corvettes, escorts to the convoys that became the lifelines of a beleaguered Britain. Life in cramped quarters of a rolling corvette held few comforts: its crew endured wretched weather and suspect rations, the idiosyncracies of shipmates (some of whom went quietly mad in harmless ways) the merciless attacks of the U-boat wolf-packs, and the memory of pathetic survivors left in the water because the safe arrival of the convoy came before the rescue of comrades. During all too brief leaves ashore, the men found solace in the rarified atmosphere of Admiralty House in Halifax, Nova Scotia, or the international camaraderie of England's dockside pubs, or the dazzling sophistication of Manhattan's supper clubs. And there was comic relief in generous measure: doctoring the watch officer's hot chocolate; scrambling with fellow officers for a single fresh egg; confronting the enemy face-to-face on the heaving deck of a surfaced U-boat clad only in a skimpy lifebelt; and other stories. Awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his part in the sinking of a German submarine, and transformed by the PR men into a front page hero at home, Lawrence at last joined the destroyer Sioux and with her sailed the long convoy runs to Russia.