Neptune Initiates Canadians in "Italian Submarine Waters"
By David Lewis, RCNVR, Combined Ops
HMS Keren. Photo Credit - clydeships.co.uk
Introduction: Though this short story by Albertan D. J. Lewis primarily touches on a strange Navy tradition practiced aboard ships passing over the Equator, it also mentions other matters related to Canadians serving in Combined Operations on their way to HMS Saunders, near Alexandria, and the invasion of Sicily, 1943. [Editor GH]
Neptune Visits Empire Charmian
In 1943, just when the weather in England had begun to get nice we left the UK and our dizzy succession of lodgings which had led into many strange places, afloat or ashore, came to a halt. Bill Sinclair and I and a draft of our men boarded a venerable Orient line vessel (not Peninsula and Orient line), HMS Keren, commanded by a well seasoned RNR Commander. We did not know where we were off to, but by now in our Combined Ops careers we did not expect anything except wild stab of humorous guessing for the first week out to sea.
We had boarded the Keren at Gourock. She was a nice old vessel and she conveyed us safely the whole way around the western bulge of Africa with a stop at Freetown...
We did not know but we were passing through Italian submarine waters and they were quite effective against merchant vessels.*
[A Footnote was added later by D. Lewis: *Mr. John Fleming of Calgary has provided a document, "The Italian Submarine Campaign" by Professor A. Santoni... On our way to Egypt we were passing through the area allocated to Italian submarine activity, passing down the west coast of Africa and turning the Cape of Good Hope. Thirty-two Italian submarines in three years sank 109 merchant vessels for a total of 593,864 gross tons and damaged four more vessels and a British destroyer. Sixteen submarines were lost.]
We sailed on past the Equator without notice being taken by King Neptune's servants, who must have had the day off as we passed the line unshaved and un-doused. For his part, Stoker Birkenes and those who were aboard the Empire Charmian minding our LCMs, the ceremony was carried out with vigour. The severe ceremonies are illustrated in a picture taken in the course of the long and grizzly rituals. A Court was arranged which was attended by a grimly sad Neptune, Monarch of the Sea, who was to be feted. His Court was assembled confronting an American LCM (Mark 3) which had been filled up with ocean water. Stoker Len Birkenes describes the ordeal (@ St. Nazaire to Singapore, bottom half of page 156).
Empire Charmian in 1950. Photo Credit - swanseadocks.co.uk
Above four photos from St. Nazaire to Singapore, pages 157 - 159
"Chuck Levett, member of RCNVR, Combined Ops and 55th Flotilla,
received this authentic certificate for crossing the equator on April 25, 1943"
Courtesy of his widow, Dot Levett, 2012
David Lewis concludes his short story, re Canadians on their way to Egypt, then Sicily, with a final paragraph and informative footnote:
The passage of Douglas Harrison and his shipmates in David Roger's (sic: Rodger's) party on the Silver Walnut has been elegantly described by him. They must have the record for a sitting torpedo target during the innumerable occasions when the S.S. Silver Walnut's engines would not turn. His experiences are commemorated in a series of articles which appeared in the 1993 volumes of the Norwich Gazette. Doug writes with such warmth and concern about his experience circumnavigating Africa that most of the series are included in this volume for interest. (Link to Short Story re Sicily, The Long Way 'Round)
Gradually the flotillas and their craft of the 80th and 81st gathered at HMS Saunders* in the Great Bitter Lakes, midway between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.
*HMS Saunders was named after Sir Charles Saunders 1713 - 1775. Saunders had seen 32 years of service in the British Navy when he was selected in the French and India war to command the fleet that carried the soldiers of General James Wolfe down the St. Lawrence River in Quebec (1759)...
More details re the earlier passages above and the final footnote can be found on pages 156 - 157 of St. Nazaire to Singapore, Vol. 1.
Please link to Short Story re Sicily, "Keith Beecher's Diary Entries"
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