Description
Mr. Murray describes rising to the rank of Squadron Commander and generalizes about Canadian theatres of operation.
Lawrence Edward Murray
Mr. Murray was born in Stratford, Ontario, on June 6, 1947. Strongly influenced by family and friends who had joined the Navy, he entered officer training at HMCS Carleton base in Ottawa. Following that, he began his progression through the rank echelon, starting on the west coast aboard the HMCS Fraser as the Navigation Officer. Once on the east coast, he joined the crew of HMCS Algonquin as her Combat Officer, then became Executive Officer or Second in Command aboard HMCS Athabascan. Mr. Murray then moved to HMCS Iroquois as her Commanding Officer. He then rose to the position of Squadron Commander, 1st Canadian Destroyer Squadron. During his service, the Canadian Navy was actively involved in both NATO / Cold War ( primarily surveillance of Soviet submarines ) and Fisheries Patrol activities. He also led a rescue mission off the Grand Banks, saving the entire crew of a disabled merchant ship during a hurricane. After leaving the Navy, Mr. Murray pursued a career in the Canadian Public service, and is currently the Deputy Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. He resides in Ottawa, Ontario.
Transcript
Yeah, no I joined, and I was part of what was called then the Regular Officer Training Plan. I went to a civilian university but trained with the naval reserve in the winter. Here actually, in Ottawa, at HMCS Carleton and then in the summer trained with the, with the regular navy on both coasts. And when I graduated, I did basic pre-fleet training and then joined HMCS Fraser as a, as a junior officer. Did my initial training in Fraser, specialized in navigation and then went back for a second tour in Fraser, as a ship's navigation officer. And spent my, most of my sea time before becoming qualified for command, as a navigating officer and combat control officer. When I came back as the combat officer of Algonquin, I was the combat officer, in other words, responsible for, for all the ship's operations and weapons system. As executive officer of Athabascan, I was the second in command, and then in Iroquois, I was the commanding officer. And as squadron, destroyer squadron commander of the first Canadian destroyer squadron, I was, I was the squadron commander. So the role, the role . . . my personal role changed as I . . . as, as time went on. But the nature of the operation until 1989 was fundamentally and primarily focussed largely on, kind of cold war activities. I was on the west coast in, in smaller minesweepers. The focus there was more on coastal patrol, search and rescue and training junior officers. But in a period of time, as the OPS officer and combat officer of Provider on the west coast. I would say it was a similar focus to the east coast. It's just that NATO didn't exist there, so it tended to be more of a, of a Canada, US, Australia, New Zealand focus. But again, major, major operations would have fundamentally a cold war, Warsaw Pact, NATO flavour. And, and in those situations, we tended to either operate off Hawaii, off Japan, or, or sometimes down to Australia.