George enlisted as a volunteer in Charlottetown Prince Edward Island on September 6, 1940, a year after the outbreak of World War II. He was a Leading Seaman with the Royal Canadian Navy until war's end in 1945. During his five year's service he served primarily on convoy escorts on the North Atlantic Run on the H.M.S. Frisky which was a tug which towed damaged vessels from the North Atlantic into ports and picked up survivors, the corvettes H.M.C.S. Louisbourg and H.M.C.S. Drumheller, the frigate H.M.C.S. Matane and a Q-boat, the H.M.C.S. Fairmile.

George's experiences on the Frisky were varied and frightening. They frequently ran into German submaries and destroyers and often ran out of food while at sea. Despite the danger, the hardship of an empty larder and the hopelessness of searching for damaged vessels and survivors in the vast North Atlantic is what is the most memorable of the time that George served on the Frisky. One one trip, a German submarine surfaced next to them and posed a number of questions to the Captain. Without warning, it suddenly closed up and submerged. Another time the Frisky came up against a German warship which flashed in German. The Captain of the Frisky threw all the papers overboard (standard operating procedure when faced with captivity) and told all men to board the lifeboat. George grabbed his hardtack and cigarettes and boarded the skiff - the extent of their lifeboat. They fully expected the warship to open fire on their boat as was the usual practice. Fortunately a squall came up, as they often do in the North Atlantic, and the ship disappeared in the squall. The crew managed to find their way back to the Frisky and boarded once more. They did not see the German warship again. On this particular foray, they never found the damaged vessel they were looking for.

He was then assigned to the Louisbourg, which was to sail from St. John's Newfoundland across the Atlantic. Before they headed out to sea, they discovered they were one man over on their roster, so George was chosen to be put ashore and was reassigned to the Drumheller. Contact was lost with the Louisbourg after it sailed and the ship was reported missing at sea with all hands lost. It was later discovered that it sank with the loss of 37 men, captain and officers in the Mediterranean. Most of the men were killed by exploding depth charges after being hit. The depth charges were usually activated for use, And when a ship was hit, if someone did not have the chance to de-activate the fuses, when the ship sank to a certain depth, the depth charges would detonate and kill the survivors on the surface.

Ironically for George, the danger was not always lurking at sea with the enemy. While serving on the Drumheller, docked in St. John's Newfoundland, he was returning to his ship in a blackout. He mistook a black shadow for the gang plank while attempting to board the ship, and fell into the water between two ships. It was February, and fortunately a sentry on board heard him and rather than challenging or shooting him, he threw a line and rescued him. George could not swim and would not have survived very long in the frigid harbour waters.

On one occasion the Drumheller was sent to Belle Isle Newfoundland to protect four ships loaded with iron ore. A German submarine crept into the harbour and sank the four ships. Asdic and radar were no help inland, so the submarine escaped. A message was intercepted the next day from the submarine to Germany saying that they had sunk the four ships, but had run out of torpedoes, so they were not able to sink the corvette.

On another occasion the Drumheller had to tow a torpedoed boat into Lisbon, a neutral port. This duty fell to George's ship as she was the only corvette in the convoy. It took all afternoon to get the tow line aboard the torpedoed ship. George served as coxswain, and once outside the harbour he was informed the harbour was mined and it would not be possible to stray even one degree of course for the fear of contacting a mine. Not only did he have the pressure of the mine field, but also 40 foot seas to contend with. After passing into the harbour, George noticed that the stern of the corvette was lowering.

They looked back and could not see the ship. She had sunk and was pulling the corvette under stern first. So meone cried to cut the line and one of the men grabbed a fire axe and cut the ship loose. In all probability, the corvette had towed the ship after it sank, through the mine field. It was at night, so in the blackout the crew would not have been able to see whether the ship was still afloat or not.

Another incident saw the Drumheller left behind to look after a bombed tanker. They circled the tanker for ten days, and ran out of food. The first officer and five men boarded the tanker to take what food was left on the cripped ship. The officer ordered that the silver was to be taken with the food and ordered that everything was to be delivered to the officer's wardroom. There was a small rebellion and a rating was so angry that he struck his superior officer over the head with a frozen chicken. The first officer did not charge the sailor, because he himself did follow the rules of proper conduct at sea. Odd things do happen during war.

While serving on the Drumheller, he received a wound in his arm from shrapnel. The Drumheller was on her way from Londonderry when she was attacked by the Luftwaffe and a bomb dropped close by. After medical treatment, a piece of the shrapnel remained in his arm and resulted in blood poisoning. There was only basic medical aid in the form of sulpha drugs was available aboard ship, so he was offered the choice of staying on board and in all likelihood, he would be buried at sea, or, the alternative of being set off onto a buoy marker and taking his chances that he would be picked up by a passing ship. He chose the latter and because of the danger of stopping at sea, the ship slowed enough only for him to jump off onto the buoy. The only ships that stopped at sea were mail boats. Mail boats were usually like large fishing boats and they delivered mail to the convoys at sea. As luck would have it, the buoy was a target buoy used by ships for target practice, and after a day and one night on the marker, he was taken aboard a passing mail boat in hospitalized in Londonderry, Ireland.

Unfortunately there was only one orderly to care for 100 patients, so he headed by train for the Canadian Barracks Hospital in Scotland. He convalesced and then returned to Londonderry where he was drafted aboard the Matane. While serving on the Matane in 1944, the ship was torpedoed by planes and shelled from shore off the coast of France and into the Bay of Biscay. The ship was hit badly and many men were killed and wounded. Fortunately the ship stayed afloat and was towed into Falmouth. He and the stoker were sent to convalesce at a Lord's estate in England for ten days until their new kits arrived, as they had lost everything on the Matane.

They were then moved to Greenwich, just outside London, to the Canadian Barracks. He returned on Survivor's Leave to New York on the New Amsterdam which was loaded with German Prisoners of War, War Brides and members of the military. The New Amsterdam was too big and dangerous to others to be put in a convoy, so she had to rely on her speed and made the trip in five days. She was heavily armed. because of the great number of passengers, only one meal a day was possible. It was an uncomfortable voyage, as the ship was completely blacked out at night. One night, a brightly lit ship suddenly appeared out of the darkness and silently sailed past the New Amsterdam. It was extremely unsual and that ship turned out to be a Red Cross ship, lit up to avoid being attacked.

Towards the end of the war, George served on the H.M.C.S. Fairmile which was classed as a Q-Boat and he was serving in Bermuda when hostilities ceased. He suffered with bload poisoning a second time when he was cut by a nail while building a shooting range to take out to sea. He was awarded the Battle of Atlantic Star, the 1939-45 Service Star, the Volunteer Service Medal and the George VI Service Medal George returned home to Prince Edward Island and tried to rebuild his fishing career.

In November 1952, he was working with a crew repairing the wharf at Basin Head and was the first man to arrive at work that morning. When he started the engine that ran the machine for the pile driver, his sleeve caught in the chain and his arm was pulled around the sprocket. He remained conscious and managed to walk about a half-mile to Willard Ching's for help. He was taken to Souris Hospital where it was necessary to amputate his arm above the elbow.

He subsequently was employed as a fish buyer at Basin Head for many years and then as managaer of Red Point Park until his retirement. He resided in his home on the Snake Road, just two doors north from the home of his grandfather, Alexander William Bruce which still stands on the corner and was known as the "Green Shutters". He was an avid flower gardener and his gardens for many years have attracted the attention of passers by. He won a number of County and Provincial Rural Beautification Awards for his property and gardens before his death on April 3, 2007.

Copyright
Waldron H. Leard