The Story of the Great Pumpkin

Heroes Remember

The Story of the Great Pumpkin

The sailors went on the media which is my great story about the pumpkin because they went on the media saying it’s a little boring out here, you know, we’re challenging ships and yes there’s a certain activity level in most of the places but otherwise we’re not, we’re just waiting for something to happen. And we kind of miss home and this was October, we’d been there several months and they said it would be nice if we just had a pumpkin or something that reminded us of Halloween. And it was seen by Nova Scotia, it was on TV in Nova Scotia. The media were pretty good about bringing instant pictures of what was happening in the Gulf back home so this sailor said, “It would be nice to have a pumpkin out here!” And Howard Dill who was alive at that particular time called the admiral here, it was Admiral Bob George. He called him up and he said, “I have a three hundred and fifty pound pumpkin and a bunch of little ones that I want to send to the sailors in the Gulf because they have said they would like to have some memories of home, something to remind them of home.” And the admiral said, “Oh my gosh!” Anyway, God love him he arranged it to be trucked and sent on a Hercules aircraft in a big crate. It was landed in Bahrain, we sent Protector in to get this load of mail and pumpkin, the Great Pumpkin. It was indeed a three hundred and fifty pound pumpkin. Ann Gurly Langwell was the supply officer, she was the supply officer in Protector and she, she and I, we got a good picture of us looking at this thing with saying beware of the great pumpkin was inside this thing. And the cooks, when we uncrated it, I mean it was enormous, it needed a fork lift to take it anywhere. It was craned on board and the air officer came up to me from Protector and said, “You know sir, what we should do is we should fly this pumpkin around the ships in the Gulf on Halloween.” I said, “You’ve got to be kidding, right?” I said, “If you think I am going to authorize a pumpkin flight around all these missile ships knowing that anyone could shoot it out of the sky you gotta be crazy.” But I said, “Have you got a training flight that you need to do on Halloween?” He said, “Oh no sir, I don’t have a training flight.” And the captain kicked him and said, “Of course you have a training flight” He knew what I was going to get at. If you have a training flight and you happen to have a pumpkin in the back of the aircraft that’s okay. I’ll authorize that and we’ll make sure you don’t get fired at. So the cooks actually carved out two maple leafs for the eyes and Canada in the mouth and they lit it all up with flashlights and about dusk they took off with the pumpkin in the back of the helicopter and it flew around all the ships, you know, like the UK, the US, the allied ships, they just thought this was unbelievable. I sent a whole bunch of, the task group sent a whole bunch of messages, “Do not shoot this helicopter down!” And it went up there, did it and I said today I got more messages back from all of them saying, from the countries that said, you know, you Canadians, you were crazy in the First World War, you were crazy in the Second World War, you’re still crazy. Don’t every change, honest!

As sailors became a bit homesick, an elaborate act of morale was exercised when a huge pumpkin was flown above the ships acknowledging Halloween.

Duncan “Dusty” Miller

Born in the United Kingdom, Duncan “Dusty” Miller immigrated to Canada in 1954. At the age of 15 and having a strong desire to join the military, Mr. Miller went to the recruiting centre but could not be accepted until 16 years of age. He then attended Bishop’s University in Lennoxville. During his career, Mr. Miller rose to the rank of Vice Admiral where he became the Naval Task Commander aboard HMCS Athabaskan during the Persian Gulf War. Vice Admiral Miller later retired from the military and now resides in Halifax, Nova Scotia.