(Note: Though a poppy does not appear on the street sign, this street is part of the City of London's "Streets of Honour" program and was named for Stoker Smithson)
This street is named in memory of Stoker Stanley Lawrence Smithson.
Stanley Lawrence Smithson was born on 1st June 1922 in London ON. He grew up on High Street and attended Riverview Public School and Beal Technical High School before joining the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve as a Stoker. Assigned to the corvette HMCS SHAWINIGAN, he was killed and lost at sea on 25 November 1944, when his ship was torpedoed by U-1228, in the Cabot Strait off of Channel-Port-aux-Basques, Newfoundland. Stoker 1st Class Stanley Lawrence Smithson was 22 years old and is commemorated on the Halifax Memorial.
HMCS SHAWINIGAN was a Flower Class corvette built in Quebec City and commissioned on 19 September 1941. She left for her first trans-Atlantic convoy duty on January 1942 and would complete 2 more trans-Atlantic crossings before being assigned escort tasks for the Quebec-Labrador convoys. Operating out of Sydney, Nova Scotia, HMCS SHAWINIGAN was on an anti-submarine patrol in the Cabot Strait (47° 34'N, 59° 11'W) when she was hit by a torpedo at 0230 hours on 25 November 1944. She exploded and sank immediately. Of the 91 personnel on board ship, none survived.
