You Had to Prove You’re one of Them.

You’re in the army, you don’t know what you’re going to get. As I say, I was happy to go aboard the ship, but I’d never seen a patient before, until they put you in the ward. It was quite an experience, but they were a wonderful bunch of boys on the ship there. They’d been, they started out up in Ontario, I think, kind of formed a unit and come down. A lot of them had been together a year and a half before I went on. And, like Eddie Crean and them fellows, different ones. I remember Ralph Smith from Kelly’s Cross come to me just after the first trip out, I guess. He said, “You won’t find the boys very friendly,” he said. “They’re kind of a little stand-off.” But he said, “Once they get to know you,” he said, “they’re a real fine bunch of guys.” But they’ve been together for a year and a half, two years and so on, together, and they kind of had their own. You had to prove you’re one of them before you got in. I think the ship was something different. We had perfect discipline in a way, but no real discipline. Perfect respect, I guess you’d call it. Like an officer, you didn’t stand to attention to an officer on the ship, or the nurses, I mean. You just walked by them, more or less. You know, if you convened you could stand to attention perhaps, but everybody was on the same level. After all you're out there living together for twelve days, ten or twelve days, twice a month, all in one bunch, more or less and you get uh... you see we had nothing to do with running the ship at all, that was all Merchant Navy, we were like passengers. We looked after our part of it like cleaning our quarters and things but as far as running the ship was concerned, we had nothing to do with that I mean at all.

Mr. Clark describes integrating into an established crew on the ‘Lady Nelson’, and describes the informality among the officers and crew.

Charles Howard Clark

Charles Howard Clark was born in Chelton, Prince Edward Island on November 16, 1924. His father worked as a fisherman, carpenter and butcher during the Depression. Mr. Clark indicates that although times were tough, his community shared its resources and no one went hungry. He attended a one room school. Although he was able to enlist, he, like many local youth, had to stay on the farm as the production of food was vital to the war effort. Mr. Clark’s attempts to enlist in 1943 were at first unsuccessful; he was turned down by both the navy and air force, but was finally accepted into the infantry. However, his stay there was short due to a childhood hip injury, which made marching difficult. He then trained as a stretcher bearer, before finally joining the hospital ship ‘Lady Nelson’ as a nurse-orderly. Aboard this vessel, Mr. Clark made seventeen transatlantic voyages, offering medical care of various types to the wounded who were being returned to Canada. He witnessed the Halifax riots and feels much of the blame placed on the military was unwarranted.