It was October 1942 when, while on leave in London, England, I bought a small notebook at Parnell's Stationers Printers. This was to be the first of four war journals, the writing of which was undertaken simply on a sudden impulse.
To commence with, I turned over the green‑coloured cover and there inscribed my first entry: Allan J. Riley, Telegraphist V‑2634; home address, Saint John, New Brunswick. I paused to consider what to write next.
I soon decided that the appropriate starting point should be 10 September 1939, the day Canada declared war on Germany. For this day of days would have a profound effect on all Canadians, especially the young men of fighting age.
Being in my teens I was, of course, a likely prospect for Armed Forces to be raised; however, I was in no impetuous mood to hasten to the recruiting office. In this I was not much different from other youths of the time. Some lads held back because of school, while for others it was work and sports that prevailed over the dreams of far-away adventure. In my own case, a whole year was to pass before these peaceful activities were to be overshadowed by the expanding war, thoughts of enlistment and the problem of choosing a service.
These thoughts of joining up were slowly stimulated by an almost subliminal mixture of events such as stirring parades or route marches on the uptown streets by clomping khaki-clad Army units, many of whom were billeted at the Barrack Green Exhibition buildings where they were jammed into aisles of bunks in the no‑longer gay wooden structures.
Also having an effect were the periodic occasions when the neighbourhood young men would congregate on the street and discuss the merits of the various armed units and the thrills they offered - like the pumping of anti-aircraft shells into a sky full of enemy planes.
A happening in these early months of the war perhaps bent my enlistment thoughts towards the Navy. Brief though it was, the visit to a high‑and‑dry ship in the Saint John Dry Dock was to me a great privilege. I had gone there to deliver a uniform from Sandy Campbell’s tailor shop on Germain Street to the captain of the ship in the Dry Dock. The refitting ship was the armed merchant cruiser, HMS Jervis Bay. On 5 November 1940, not long after she sailed from Saint John, she won undying fame for herself and the Victoria Cross for her commander, Captain E.S Fogarty Fegen, RN.
On that fateful day, Jervis Bay was at sea as the lone escort of a 37‑ship convoy, HX84. Also at sea, having broken out into the North Atlantic was the German pocket battleship, Admiral Scheer. In the afternoon, although heavy tell‑tale oscillations were emanating from wireless receivers in the convoy, the 37 ships were located by a reconnaissance seaplane catapulted off the Scheer.
On intercepting the convoy, the battleship was checked temporarily by Jervis Bay, who laid a smoke-screen and placed herself between the convoy and the enemy. The smaller armament of Jervis Bay was no match for the huge guns of the battleship and she was pounded unmercifully until she sank. Her heroic action, however, allowed the ships of the convoy to scatter, saving them from complete annihilation as Scheer subsequently was only able to sink five of them.
Jervis Bay lost 254 officers and men. Among them was the British Radio Officer, H. Williamson, and three Canadian Ordinary Signalmen: M.W. Carson, age 20, W.H. Danby, age 20, and P.L. Ross, age 20.
There were 65 survivors, one of whom was the British Radio Officer, Richard Shackleton. Another was Robert Squires of Saint John, N.B. In the postwar years a monument, known as the Jervis Bay Memorial, was erected in East Saint John. Each year in November, along with Canadian Legion members, Robert Squires would faithfully place a wreath by the monument, thus keeping alive the memory of the gallant Jervis Bay.
Then there was the short period in 1940 when I took part in what could be described as war work: that which involved work on the mysterious degaussing cable of a merchant ship tied up at West Saint John. It was a strange device to me at the time. It was designed to make the ship safe against the action of enemy magnetic mines. Without it, the steel hull of a ship passing over a magnetic mine created a change of direction in the earth's vertical magnetic field. This in turn triggered the mine's mechanism, setting off an explosion under the ship. Demagnetization was accomplished by degaussing, a term coined from the name of J.K. Gauss, an expert on the subject of magnetic fields. The degaussing cable, as with the ship on which I worked, was strung around the ship and an electric current passed through it. This in effect produced an equal magnetic field in opposition to that of the ship, thus neutralizing the magnetic mine. Working on the ship somehow brought the war fantastically closer.
During the summer of 1940 more servicemen began to appear on the streets. One could not help to be but stirred. In the centre of the city, among the flowery lanes of King Square, I saw several members of the Royal Canadian Air force - a rare sight at this time. Their crew-cut hair and the smartness of their light-blue uniforms altogether was very impressing.
Eventually all of these things began to kindle a fire within me. I was being caught up in the ever-growing fever sweeping the ranks of many of the young men. Slowly, one by one, friends and acquaintances were drifting into the service. Naturally I felt I must be part of it all. It just seemed the thing to do - this joining up. We were at war, and no one was objecting to it.
I thought of joining the RCAF, but a chance meeting with my friend Clifford (Huck) LeClair in late 1940 changed my joining impetus to another directions. Huck was neatly dressed in a Naval uniform and, as a Stoker, had just come home on leave from Halifax. After hearing his impressions of Navy life, I needed no further urging; I was soon on my way to become a sailor.
The recruiting office of the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserves was located in an old, three-story, red-bricked building on Prince William Street diagonally opposite the Saint John High School. There, in a sparsely furnished office on an upper floor, I was greeted by a young officer who I believe was named Lieutenant Brock. He gave me a flattering welcome, and after a brief interview I joyfully learned I was to be one of a quota of Ordinary Seamen needed in December for a draft to Halifax for training in Visual Signalling. I had no idea then that instead of becoming a Visual signalman I would one day be wearing the headphones of a Telegraphist.
Although I was not the first to join at this Reserve Division, I was among the early birds. It is recorded that by 15 August 1945, my home province of New Brunswick was to see 168 officers and 2,542 men enlisting in the Naval service.
Of course I had to pass a medical, but this was no problem. I visited Dr. John R. Nugent in his private office on Carleton Street in the centre of the city and there, without any great formality or line-up, I quickly passed the medical.
For a while I attended training sessions two nights a week at the Reserve Division, armed with two semaphore flags. Instructing me during this period was leading Signalman Bill McQueen, a friendly and experienced member of the Reserves.
On 10 December I was placed on Active Service and received my uniform. I was slight of build so it was easy to find a uniform that was a good fit. I was happy in wearing it, and snug in my greatcoat, I exulted in walking through the snow-covered streets to attend training sessions.
One of my first accomplishments was pressing the "seven seas" into my trousers. This involved turning the trousers inside out and concentrating on one leg at a time, alternately folding the leg up and under for seven folds, several inches wide, and pressing a crease into it at each fold. This was tedious work, but when the trousers were returned to right side out, the seven creases gave the bell-bottoms a neat and sustained ballooning effect.
Another accomplishment was learning how to send with the red and yellow semaphore flags. My favourite message for sending was a caption of a photograph showing British warships in Alexandria Harbour. Somehow it seemed as if I were there on board one of those mighty ships.
My initial basic training was limited to the foregoing brief visual signaling sessions. This was marked contrast to the training and education of future sailors which is best described by Instructor Lieutenant Stanley MacKenzie of Saint John:
"With expansion of the navy, mapped-out policies called for a structure which provided a kind of in-service educational self-improvement form of advancement. Expanded recruitment also called for a further opportunity for serving naval ratings to advance to officer rank if university students did not keep the ranks for probationary Sub-Lieutenant filled. There had been naval school-masters at the coastal bases who had made the educational welfare of the peace-time navy their career, starting as Warrant School-masters, etc. Advancement on the lower deck even had associated with each step either need for some specialized education requirement, such as mathematics, or general education exams such as Educational Test I, Educational Test II and Higher Education Tests. The only syllabi these schoolies had were B.R.'s (Books of Reference) provided as background for these examinations.
"The great surge for bringing up the strength of the navy in 1940 and 1941 to meet the personnel requirements for expanding numbers of ships being built included the development of New Entry Training Establishments in a large number of urban centres where, for the first eight weeks of the recruit's naval career a program was developed. This consisted of orientation, and included Naval Drills, Seamanship and General (School) Education.
"As new entry classes were scheduled to be taken in every two weeks, at quite an early period the personnel were handling groups, usually from 30 to 50 persons, at four stages of development: (1) beginning the 8-week cycle; (2) beginning Week 3; (3) beginning Week 5; and (4) beginning Week 7, while one group was being sent out to the next unit of training which was HMCS Cornwallis at Deep Brook, Nova Scotia on the East Cost cycle. As an attempt was made to have all recruits to prove Grade VIII completed before entry, theoretically the groups had no one with less education than that. Some of the recruits had even one or two degrees at University, in all it was a heterogeneous group in each class and usually four such groups were going at the same time. There were the various education test sittings outside this framework for ET I, ET II, and HET. There were also M Test sittings to be supervised for often the Recruiting Officers were not experts and Personnel Selection Duties would be a part of the duties of the Naval Schoolmaster. some schoolmasters also were asked to do Drill Duties (Gunnery or Marching Drills), Chaplain Duties, Watch-Keeping Duties in turn with other officers, especially if such schoolmasters were Officer-Trained at Kings University, Halifax, or even at COTC corps in universities.
"It is estimated that each new entry class got about the equivalent of two days School Education per week; or that each class was about one third of its time under the direction of the Naval Schoolmaster. Provision had somehow to be made for individual differences (faster students to tutor the slower ones). sometimes some students would be excused school, but usually the whole group got a course of basic English rules in good usage grammar, spelling, composition, current events, and mathematics (fundamental operations in mensuration, basic business and financial formula) with sample papers in ET I and ET II to work, plus a chance to enrole for correspondence study under the Canadian Legion Educational Services. The schoolmaster evaluated this performance, and also kept a register and tried to know each student personally in order to make some sort of impression on these adult persons. Discipline while the schoolmaster was in uniform was not difficult; however, for six and a half months from 16 June to 31 December, 1941, most of the schoolies were civil servants without uniform though with quarterdeck power. Some incidents, largely mischievous, resulted in some such punishments as double marching the class up a nasty little hill in a city block. It was mostly good natured, however. At the outset (June 1941) the schoolmaster in each new entry establishment made up his own syllabus. In late 1942 or thereabouts much of this independent work was rationalized under the Commanding Officer Naval Divisions in Toronto, being that coordination was considered desirable. The early schoolmasters usually continued in the syllabi they themselves had developed. If the Recruiting Centres could not supply new entry divisions, divisions would be sent from other areas, (Windsor, Ontario, for example) but the groups continued well into 1944 without letup.
"The schoolmasters recruited first (in 1941) were expected to be 26 years of age, experienced (holding Department of Education teaching certificates) and physically fit. Officer training was not a prerequisite but was considered an asset. The first lot recruited were civil servants in the Department of National Defence (Naval Service). I was recruited although only 23 years of age at the time; I suppose because I was available since I came not from a school but from Graduate Study which I was told was "not essential" to the war effort. My previous high school teaching, however, had included English, Civics and Mathematics, so I undoubtedly qualified, and I was also quite evidently anxious to join some branch of the Naval Service. One handicap existed for me when joining the branch at the age of 23 years: I should, if we civil servants were to go on active Naval Service, require two years to advance from Sub-Lieutenant to Lieutenant, while anyone over 25 years of age would require only one year. But, of course, I didn't care, and the opening at first as a civil servant carried no such promise, anyway. After six and a half months civil service, we were all given our commissions on 1 January 1942, as Sub-Lieutenant (Special Branch) - green stripe - soon to be changed to Sub-Lieutenant (instructor) - blue stripe. I was promoted 1 January 1944 to Instructor Lieutenant and given an additional year of seniority to catch up to the older schoolies who had naturally been promoted earlier.
"I was drafted at the end of August 1944 to St. John's Newfoundland, where I served as Assistant Schoolmaster under Lt.Cdr. Clarence Mercer. I taught English and Math evening classes, individual instruction in Math to dockyard personnel, arranged adult activities (debating, films, etc), and arranged liaison service with Navigation School and Memorial University. I also had a program of Acting Schoolmasters reporting to me in St. John's and to my opposite number in Londonderry re Canadian Legion Educational Services correspondence study carried out on board operational ships at sea. At a period before VE day, anticipating the end of the war, though I did volunteer for Pacific service, I applied to do Personnel Selection Counselling and was sent on a counselling course to Ottawa in May 1945. I came back to St. John's to do Discharge Counselling (Transit) as ships were being demanned, then to Saint John, N.B. for one month (September '45) for individual discharge counselling, and on to Sydney, N.S. for three months for similar duties, and finally, through Halifax to Saint John, N.B. for demobilization 21 January 1946."
Lt. Stanley MacKenzie later was to become the brother-in-law of my brother Ron. In the post-war era Stanley continued his career in education becoming the Registrar at Acadian University and later, Superintendent of Schools for Nova Scotia.
At this time of the war, December 1940, one did not have to undergo such initial training as mentioned by Lt. MacKenzie. There was a great need for men at the coast, and on 27 December I was drafted to Halifax along with eight others: Louis Kelly, Louis Coyle, Mickey MacWilliams, Basil Jackson, Johnny Williams, Gerry Sloat, Don Williams, and another chap who was later discharged for desertion.
At the Union Station on a cold wintery day my sister Mary bid me a wistful farewell. The train trip began noisily with one of our group punching his fist through a window. Fortunately he was not hurt seriously and the trip continued uneventfully via Moncton, and Truro to Halifax where we arrived late in the evening.
By this time the alcoholic effects of the few who had been drinking were well worn off and we were a subdued crowd milling around the railway station, waiting until our baggage was unloaded. Soon a truck came along and, after loading us and our baggage, carried us through quiet unknown streets to the Signal School in Stadacona II, formerly the Halifax Exhibition buildings. Here, as we searched in the darkness for our bunks, we were welcomed by taunting calls of, "Jeep! Jeep!" This term, meaning recruit, I was not to hear again in the war.
Stadacona II, formerly occupied by the Army, was commissioned on 1 August 1940. Previously to this, signal training had been carried out in the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve quarters in the dockyard. Stokers were quartered under the grandstand, while communication personnel occupied what was once the Industrial Building. It was to be our home until April.
In the morning, following an unappetizing breakfast of fish we began our In routine: the reporting to various offices to have our individual Station cards stamped. The Station Cards were about three by four inches in size, coloured depending on which Duty Watch a man was allocated, and contained a couple of pages of blocked sections where the various offices such as Training Office, Post Office, and Pay Office, stamped their mark. On going ashore, the men left these cards at the main gate where they were filed in racks in alphabetical order. The filing was simplified by the holder's name being displayed through a small window near the top of the front cover of the card. On returning to barracks the men retrieved the cards.
The In routine required a trip to the bustling Halifax dockyard. While there we received a brief anti-gas lecture and then placed in a small shack where we donned our respirators when some gas was let loose. I suppose that made us ready for any eventuality.
Back at Stad II we spent a week of rifle and squad drilling, mainly in a cold open-ended shed. A salty Leading Seaman rushed us through our paces, goading us with typical caustic statements such as: "Don't stand there like a pregnant woman!"
During this time Lou Kelly, Mickey MacWilliams and I changed over to Wireless Telegraphy (WT) on a request for volunteers. Then, with our drill period over, we joined a "buzzer pool" to learn our first morse, and thereupon were informed that those who could read 12 words per minute by 28 January would be placed in a class to start their wireless course.
Every day thereafter we sat around a table in the basement while an instructor pounded out dots and dashes on a simple up-and-down key. In our minds we tried to make sense of the jumbled characters, at the same time pushing pencils and striving frantically to copy them...dit-daw-dit-dit - was it L or F? - no, it was L, that's for sure. Eventually words began to take form and by the 28th, my name was on the course list. The course was scheduled for three months. In the early navy, the course was much longer. Art Hewitt, now of Ottawa ON, remembers joining the navy at Esquimalt in 1928 at age 19. He was sent to Halifax for a long W/T course of nine months duration. He then went to the UK where he served in HMS Nelson for a year of experience. He returned to Canada as a Qualified Telegraphist and served on the west coast in the destroyers Vancouver and Skeena. Communications at that time were with the shore W/T station located in HMCS Naden. By 1938, Art was a P.O. Tel. In the early months of the war he served in both the destroyer Ottawa and the shore W/T station in Ottawa. In 1941, after completing a course in Halifax, he was promoted to Warrant Tel. He then served three years as Port Wireless Officer in Halifax, being promoted to a Lieutenant during that period. Art retired as a Commander in 1961.
Our class was called "R" Hostilities Class. Lou and Mickey were coursed in "S" Hostilities Class that started about two weeks after ours. Subjects covered were Technical practical, Technical Theory, Communication Procedure, Coding, and Morse Transmitting and Receiving. The Technical subjects helped to show us how to operate the various receivers and transmitters. The procedure subject showed us how to form the messages and how to communicate properly. The Coding subject showed us how to transform our plain language messages into code, and conversely, coded messages into plain language. The proper term should have been called Enciphering and Deciphering, though the basic figured groups were called Code groups. A preliminary examination on all of these subjects was given at the end of the first month. I passed this with no difficulty.
Barrack life was new to us, but it posed no problems. After the first week we were well accustomed to the daily routine. In the morning we were awakened at 0630, had breakfast at 7, then usually took a walk around the grounds before classes. After lunch we formed a queue for mail. Following afternoon classes we fell in outside the building for divisions - that is, all the classes assembled for the final parade of the day. Then off to supper.
We received our meals seated at long wooden table in the Mess Hall. The food was carried in a large pan to the head of each table where one of the men would dole it out. The plates were then passed by each man down the table, the end man being able to eat first. The portions brought no noticeable complaints. Anyway we were able to augment our diet by trips to the canteen at the end of the building for pop, candy and ice cream bars, or for the same and miniature pies at the small store across the street from the barrack entrance.
A barracks of this type was very convenient for training, because the classrooms were on the first floor, and the sleeping quarters on the second. Though we possessed hammocks, we slept in three-tier metal bunks. Our square wooden lockers, like oversized orange crates, were grouped together in an area by themselves, but adjacent to some of the bunks.
A relaxing deviation from the course was the Physical Training that took place periodically in a Church hall several blocks away. Comfortable in our blue greatcoats and filled with pride, we marched to and from the hall through the snow-covered streets. On the odd Sunday evening I played hockey for the Stad II team in the nearby Halifax Forum. All this was more fun than exercise.
We were allowed shore leave two nights out of three. On the third nights we were employed as duty watch, but I remained on board much of the time to study, regardless of our two nights off, so eager was I to pass the course. A familiar pipe during those nights was "Still for rounds!" signifying the approach of the Officer of the Day on his inspection rounds. Staying in barracks had the additional attractions of concerts and movies on different nights. These were appreciated by all the men.
Other social arrangements were made for the men, and once I attended a social gathering at a local school where I was fortunate enough to meet Marie Flemming, a pretty girl with perpetual smiling eyes. Marie became a good friend of long standing.
Obstacles to the course arose from time to time. On one occasion a lad in a nearby bunk was taken ill and sent to Sick Bay located beneath the grandstand. In some cases such as this one, it was the custom to have neighbours of the sick person transferred also to Sick Bay to prevent the spread of any contagious disease. I was determined not to go to Sick Bay so I moved my bedding into an empty bunk in the next aisle. I was thus able to avert any drawback in my course.
On another occasion I had to have several teeth extracted. This was attended to one morning by an Army dentist, located on the second floor of our barracks. Afterwards, this short diversion from classes was almost prolonged by a sudden sickness, possible caused by swallowing too much blood. A trip to the heads of one of the washrooms became the cure. I then returned to struggle through lectures for another day.
One day, the ship's company was witness to an unusual display. We fell in on the sloping land between the Forum and the grandstand, and then into our midst was paraded the forlorn figure of a man, who apparently was a cook and had been found guilty of stealing. After a brief ceremony he was marched away, an example of ignominy for all to see. If this was to be a deterence to others, it probably had the desired effect.
There was a stir of excitement on 25 March, brought about by the burning and sinking of the patrol vessel Otter (Lt. D.S. Mossman) in the approaches to Halifax. Lost with her were Telegraphists I.C. Armstrong, age 25; A.E. Day, age 29; and E.A. Mabey, age 22.
Previous to this mishap the Canadian Navy had lost three other ships in the war. The first was the destroyer Fraser (Cdr. W.B. Creery), lost in a collision with HMS Calcutta in the Bay of Biscay on 25 June 1940, and with her Petty Officer Telegraphist D. Marr, age 30.
The second ship to go was the destroyer Margaree (Cdr. J.W. Roy), lost in a collision with SS Port Fairy in the North Atlantic on 22 October 1940, and with her P.O. Tel M. Fenerty, age 31; and Telegraphists: A.W. Armstrong, age 30; R.L. Clarke, age 20; D.A. McTaggart, age 23; C.B. Meadows, age 20; C.A. Norris, age 23; and H.G. Stark, age 20.
Relative to the foregoing sinkings was an intriguing incident which occurred the previous 18 January. On that date, a note on a Naval message form was deposited between the walls of an office in the Halifax dockyard during alterations. It contained the names of the Halifax WT Station staff; P.O. Tel D.G. Willcocks, Ldg Tel J.E. Belanger, and Tel Trained Operators C.A. Norris and A.W. Armstrong. It also bore the message: "May all our relatives, grand or great grandchildren, be informed of our being present here at this date."
The Naval message form, addressed to the Foreman in Charge Demolition Gang, was discovered during renovations in 1961. It then became known that Willcocks and Belanger had the good fortune to survive the war. As for Armstrong and Norris, they had been drafted back to sea to the destroyer Fraser, luckily surviving its disaster - but, unfortunately, they were among those lost in the sinking of Margaree.
The third vessel lost was the minesweeper Bras D'or (Lt. C.A. Hornsby), by foundering in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in October 1940 losing all hands, including Tel G.W. Brenton, age 23, and Tel I. Korning, age 19.
In April we came to the last week of our course and wrote the final exams. They were difficult and I was apprehensive about the results; but I should not have been, because on Saturday 20 April, I was suddenly advised that I was to be drafted to Quebec City along with three other sparkers from our class: Cranfield, Chuck Bradley, and Bill Vesey. We were the first of our class to be drafted. Although we had not received our marks, obviously we had passed. I was elated.
On Sunday, as part of a complete draft of Visual Signalmen, Stokers, and various seamen, we departed by train from Halifax.
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