The convoy was seventy ships, not counting the navy ships that
were escorting us, and that convoy was 10 miles wide and 3 miles
long. Like, the convoys were always wide, from a protection
standpoint. You can imagine, with the ships in the middle,
they were a little better protected, like the oil tankers and,
and ones... To get to that convoy, it was the fifth convoy that
we went, like, because we had to come through the Panama and up
to New York, Boston, Halifax, into Bedford Basin, and then over.
That was the fifth convoy, and the Green Gables Park could have
been assigned coffin corner five convoys in a row. We began to
feel that somebody didn't really care whether we made it across
or not. Oh, coffin corner, if you take a triangle and, as I said,
the convoy was 10 miles wide and 3 miles long... Well, the aft,
port and starboard corners of the triangle, that was the one you
didn't wanna get on, because if you kinda drifted off, got a
little slow and didn't keep up convoy speed, you could be picked
off pretty easily ‘cause they were, were keeping an eye out for
you. And so, when you got that corner, you were coffin corner.
That was just a name we had for it. But they did this, depending
on your cargo and various things, so I don't know. I think it was
quite an honest way, I don't think anybody was picking on us or
anything. But when we were in the North Atlantic at one point,
it was just the point where the convoy was breaking up...
In other words, some ships would be going to London, some to
Liverpool, some to Firth of Forth. Some ships were going on the
Murmansk run. And we were signalled in changing convoy, and I
should point out, the enemy at that point picked an excellent
time to attack because there was a fair amount of confusion,
as you can imagine, with seventy ships all trying to get into
certain little smaller convoys and get onto their... And the
enemy attacked at that point, and we were watching the ship.
It happened to be an American Liberty Ship that was taking our
place. Of course, we'd been there for, as I said, five other
convoys and just as he got in our position, he got torpedoed,
so we were saying they were watching him when he got hit and the
ship next to us, the... We had British corvettes at that point.
We'd had Canadian most of the way and then, we just, at that
point where they switch over. And the British Corvettes had
signalled, I forget, it was a flag they put up. But when they put
that up, you knew they had a sub, they weren't fooling around.
They think they got one, they were after one, and they were
dropping depth charges, and they went across our bow and the ship
next to us put up the flags, 'Have hit submerged object'.
Well, in the North Atlantic there aren't too many submerged
objects in that particular time, except submarines. And the sound
was so loud. Each column in a convoy was 600 metres apart and
that's what you tried to keep. And they hit the, they'd obviously
hit the sub, and it was so loud. Water, of course, transfers
sound excellently and, and we ran out on deck because we thought
we'd hit something. I was off watch at the time and, as I say,
this signal came up of hit submerged object, and then we actually
heard the submarine breaking up as it went down. And that's,
that's a sound I'll never forget, and it's a scary sound.
And you knew it could be you, but it was a, a submarine at this
time, and you heard it break up until it finally just faded away
sort of thing, you know, so. That was, that was a scary time and
you, you didn't really have time to be afraid, but you were
afraid after you thought about it. That was what it amounted to.
That was one time, in convoys.