From Air Force to Navy!

For me it was a shock when I left Chilliwack. Like I said I was air force. I never thought when I joined that I would be sailing in the navy. So as a clerk we call it a purple trade in that you can serve with any unit whether it be air force, army or navy. So it’s not necessarily the uniform you wear. You can be with any unit so for myself going on board HMCS Huron the first time, that was in ’97, it was kind of a shock to me because you know the first thing you did when you got on board was you got your “Know your ship book” so you had to do a full set of engineering drawings. They have the ship’s layout, you’d have to know where all the Kamox (sp) firefighting gear was, all the fire control systems. So you basically had to know the ship. As one of my other duties on board I was also, I would have to stand quartermaster so you would have to stand on the brow and all that for 4-hour shifts. When we were in harbour there was a crew on duty everyday so the ship was always manned 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. When we were at sea it was the same thing we had to do rounds so it wasn’t like I just worked in the ships office and did admin. What I found out when I first got there was that my job as a clerk became secondary, that the ship was primary and my duties… everybody had a list of duties and if there was a fire I would have to close up in a certain position, don the firefighting gear and be ready to be tasked out. It was kind of a shock for me like I said I had to stand brow quartermaster. As part of that I had to know how to do all the ships pipes. In the morning there was a pipe called, “Wakey, wakey!” We had to know how to do that. We had to know the “Hands to dinner” pipe so it was like I became really part of the navy, I was no longer air force really because I would get on board the ship. I would arrive in my air force uniform then I would go down to our mess where we stayed, our bunks, and then I would get changed in my naval work dress. If I was standing brow quartermaster then I would have to put my Canadian Forces, my CF’s on. We would do a four hour shift on the brow, three four hour shifts and then you would be finished your duty for the 24 hours. And then every day in port the ships, there is a fire exercise whether you are alongside or you’re at sea. So the training isn’t only at sea, it’s everyday alongside you so when you’re on duty you know that at some point the ship would exercise, would do their own fire acts or a casualty and then sometimes Sea Training, they were headquartered at the base too and sometimes they would show up and do an exercise too and then that would be critiqued and all that. You had to be on duty 24/7, you know, and always expecting that something was going to happen.

Ms. Bate shares the circumstances of how she became part of the Sea Training Pacific and duties she had while on board the HMCS Huron.

Sandy Bate

Ms. Sandy Bate was born July 11, 1960 in Chatham, New Brunswick. Prior to joining the military, she was employed with DND for ten years. At the age of 28 she chose to join the military and with her clerical skills and sports background saw fit to join the air force. Throughout Ms. Bate’s career she had several postings across Canada and because of family connection in Comox, BC made a big decision to switch over to the navy as junior clerk and become part of the crew of the HMCS Huron. Eventually, due to declining health, Ms. Bate was medically discharged in 2009. Being part of the Invictus Games 2017 has been instrumental in providing a positive outlook to her retired life. She represented Canada as part of the Team Canada Golf team, an initiative she is most proud of. Ms. Bate now resides in Victoria, BC with her family.