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Ships Looking Like Icebergs

Heroes Remember

Ships Looking Like Icebergs

Transcript
When the ice stopped they had to get at that ice because it could outweigh one side over the other and the indicator on the funnel would tell you when you’re at a serious stage. The way they took it off was with steam hoses and with hatchets. And if it got to real bad then what you had to do is turn around and let the rest of the ship, the other side of the ship ice up, but you couldn’t do that if you were in convoy, but we never had that much icing time trouble out on the North Atlantic. The worse I saw was in the mouth of the St. Lawrence. It almost made you look like you were looking at an iceberg rather than a ship and I know because we used to see the icebergs quite often and every now and then if we didn’t have much to do and we weren’t in a convoy, we’d use an iceberg for target practice. The thing about icebergs a lot of people don’t realize 2/3 of the iceberg is under the water. When you see how big it is on the water you can realize how much bigger it is under the water. Some of them are just like a house or an apartment block. Some are huge.
Description

Mr. Nordlund compares the ships icing up similar to an iceberg and how the men dealt with these conditions.

Hough Nordlund

Mr. Hough Nordlund was born July 17, 1922 in Kamsack, Saskatchewan. After his elementary school years, his family moved to Ponachi, Saskatchewan where he graduated from high school. Then Mr. Nordlund joined the Navy and trained on the HMCS Queen Regina. After initial training he was drafted to the ship, Prince Henry, doing offshore and inshore service around Vancouver Island. His main role aboard these ships was radio operator, receiving messages through morse code. During his service time in the navy, Mr. Nordlund sailed on other ships, the HMCS Kootenay and Alberni. Mr. Nordlund was an active soldier during the D-Day invasion and occupied the role of skipper onboard the landing craft LC3 taking troops to Omaha Beach. Mr. Nordlund finished his service onboard the HMCS Kootenay and had a few runs to the Murmansk before leaving the navy. After discharge Mr. Nordlund served with the militia and worked with the Federal Government in the Fisheries and Oceans Department, retiring with 38 years service.

Meta Data
Medium:
Video
Owner:
Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:
1:23
Person Interviewed:
Hough Nordlund
War, Conflict or Mission:
Second World War
Branch:
Navy

Copyright / Permission to Reproduce

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