"DAD, WELL DONE" Navy Memoirs 13
by L/S Coxswain Doug Harrison
A bronze sailor holds a copy of the V-E Day news, Victoria BC*
Chapter ELEVEN. HAMILTON, DISCHARGE, THE CO-OP
After being shipped to H.M.C.S. Naden from Givenchy to Esquimalt B.C., I entrained for the new H.M.C. Star built in my absence in Hamilton, Ontario.
I wasn’t home a day before they were after me to go to the Co-op and work again, they were short of men.
I said, “No Sir. I have leave coming to me and I’m taking it.”
In fact, my records weren’t in after the first thirty days so I got another thirty days of leave. But the third time I went back I got my discharge having signed up for Hostilities only. I was discharged one day before my twenty-fifth birthday, September 5, 1945.
I resumed work at the Co-op, worked my way up from truck driver to production manager and was pensioned off in October, 1975 after being there nearly forty years counting my time in the Royal Canadian Volunteer Reserve Navy. I had fulfilled my ambition to be a sailor like my Dad and Lord Admiral Nelson and I am very proud.
I said, “No Sir. I have leave coming to me and I’m taking it.”
In fact, my records weren’t in after the first thirty days so I got another thirty days of leave. But the third time I went back I got my discharge having signed up for Hostilities only. I was discharged one day before my twenty-fifth birthday, September 5, 1945.
I resumed work at the Co-op, worked my way up from truck driver to production manager and was pensioned off in October, 1975 after being there nearly forty years counting my time in the Royal Canadian Volunteer Reserve Navy. I had fulfilled my ambition to be a sailor like my Dad and Lord Admiral Nelson and I am very proud.
Doug's 25-year watch was presented to him in the mid-1960s
It would cost a small fortune today to retrace the places I had been to and seen under the White Ensign. At D-Day (Normandy) I was at H.M.S. Givenchy III but many of our boys took part in that too.
The ship HMCS Givenchy: Photo credit - The Maritime Museum of BC, 2012
Details re HMCS Givenchy - Photo credit, as above
Roll along, Wavy Navy, roll along
If they ask you who you are
We’re the R.C.N.V.R.
Royal along, Canadian Navy, roll along
* * * * *
The main body of Doug Harrison's memoirs were written in 1975, perhaps after he retired from the Norwich Co-op.
*Doug was stationed at Givenchy III, on The Spit, when V-E Day was celebrated.
*Doug was stationed at Givenchy III, on The Spit, when V-E Day was celebrated.
In 2012, at Courtenay BC, this blog's author met Dorothy Levett, widow of Chuck Levett, a former member of RCNVR and Combined Operations (one who served with Doug Harrison at Givenchy III between 1944 - 45). Dorothy is seen with a copy of Combined Operations, a book by Londoner Clayton Marks, open at the page in which a photo of her husband appears.
Dorothy Levett, 2012
The author at Esquimalt (Naden) Navy base, 2012
More of Doug's RCNVR and Combined Operations memoirs to follow.
Please link to more Memoirs re CO at "DAD, WELL DONE" Navy Memoirs 12
Unattributed Photos by GH
Please link to more Memoirs re CO at "DAD, WELL DONE" Navy Memoirs 12
Unattributed Photos by GH
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