Dangerous return to England

Heroes Remember

Dangerous return to England

Transcript

We were stationed, where we're, they sent some ships out and called it the Eastern Fleet. They were old battleships, mostly, and we were, our, our ship was part of that fleet. We weren't, we were there doing what we could, but this group that hit us were the same group that worked over Pearl Harbour and they were the top of their firm. Well we had to go back to England so we were dumped ashore at, at Kenya, Mombasa, in Kenya, and then we went down to, first to Durban, South Africa, by merchant ship, then on to Cape Town, went on a Norwegian's merchant ship travelling alone all the way back to Britain. Which I thought we were, we had no, no idea how lucky we were to make it because that was the height of the submarine war. We went right across the front of them. We had to go for further training, training for lieutenants, at the various specialty schools in Britain. There was the torpedo school, the gunnery school, navigation school, and that sort of thing anyway. That was about four months. That took us to the start of 1943.

Description

Mr. Howe talks about his return to England, and training there as a Lieutenant.

William Howe

Mr. Howe was born in Port Arthur, now Thunder Bay, Ontario, on 26 August 1922. His father was a cabinet minister and was in London during bombing attacks. His father survived being torpedoed on the way to visit him overseas and was also involved in a sea wreck. Mr. Howe did his naval training in England where he also completed lieutenant's training. He served aboard HMCS Turbon, Dorchester, Sackville and Huron. At the end of the war, Mr. Howe was appointed as a Naval Aid to the Governor of Hong Kong and began a career in politics, on his return to England with the support of MacKenzie King.

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