First Time Under Fire

Heroes Remember

First Time Under Fire

Transcript

Pretty scary! Interviewer: Was it a night action Mr. Ellis No, it was an evening, the first time, and one of the fellas on our ship shot one of the planes down. All leaking gun or something, there was a little wee gun on the side of the ship there and he could really pop the bullets out of her and he put em into the water. But, we were in Ipswich one night and there was quite on raid on there and there was bombs dropping everywhere and shrapnel and it was hitting the ship and all that, but we weren't out on deck we were just underneath the back canopy where the ship was. If you weren't there you were down in the engine room working. Interviewer: Being a stoker, much of the time you'd be below decks. (Yeah.) Was there a particular danger in being in the engine room? Oh yes, it was a dangerous spot, but the, you could tell, now manys a time we were scraped for a...by a, a torpedo. You could hear them, they just strike the side of the ship, just scraped right down on the side, they didn't hit as far, hit on they would explode. They'd be, you'd be down, and they be going this way and that way. More burners on, get her going faster, you know, and when you get out of that there'd be submarines would be firing these here torpedos and we didn't get it, but they got us in the end though, but anyway. Interviewer: So these torpedos would be glancing off. Glancing off the side of the ship. I remember an old Chief Stokers, well he wasn't that old of a fella, a nice blonde headed fella, great fella, he's an Englishmen. He says, well that's not gonna, that fellas not gonna get us, he says, he's gone by. Interviewer: You mentioned that there were other engagements, night action perhaps. (Oh, yes.) Anything in particular that stands out Mr. Ellis. Well, we went on a, we went from there back up to Na, to Scotland the, the Clyde and got supplies. And we took a convoy then down to the Mediterranean and that was the invasion of the them, there in 19 fall of 1942, in Algiers, invasion of Algiers. And we were the flotilla leader of the ship, was a convoy whether, on the flotilla on our ship. There was about 5 sweepers and we were the flotilla leader.

Description

Mr. Ellis was asked to remember the first time his minesweeper encountered German fire.

Bruce Ellis

Bruce Ellis was born in Donaldston, Prince Edward Island on June 19, 1918. His father was a machine salesman and operated a small farm. He comes from a very large family with a total of 18 siblings - 9 brothers and 9 sisters. He was the fifth born. He recalls attending a one-room school with almost 50 students attending. He left school in Grade 8 near the age of 15 years. Mr. Ellis originally enlisted in the Canadian Army but moved to the Royal Canadian Navy after basic army training.

Meta Data

Medium:: Video
Owner:: Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:: 03:17
Person Interviewed:: Bruce Ellis
War, Conflict or Mission:: Second World War
Branch:: Navy
Occupation:: Stoker

Language selection

First Time Under Fire

Heroes Remember