We lost two boys overboard

First World War Audio Archive

We lost two boys overboard

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Transcript

We shipped out of Halifax. There was another boat and another troop ship was there. It was the, the other one was the Missanabe and the one I was on was the Scandinavia, that was the name of the ship. And there was one cruiser, a Canadian navy cruiser, I think that was the Her Majesty’s Ship Carnarvon, I think, the name was Carnarvon. It was a cruiser. Well it escorted us two boats half way across the ocean, you know, to England and then some British torpedo boats came out and met us. They’d been bringing another, escorting another bunch of ships that was coming back to Canada. So they took over us and took us in to England, and our cruiser turned around and took that convoy back to Canada. But oh, oh, we had blizzards and rain and ice. The boat was going this way and that way. We lost two boys overboard. They was told it was out of bounds, and they would go up there and a damn wave came, and we couldn’t launch a boat. It was terrible. We had other trumpeters on there, same, and we were assigned to ship’s bugle more or less, a trumpeter, called bugle, but I was a trumpeter. But these guys, on the ship they were before, they were assigned to certain life boats in a case of emergency, where they had to group, you know. And they were to be on the alert any time they heard the alarm that we played on the bugle or the trumpet. They had to run up there and assemble at that life boat. But, of course, some of the time they couldn’t because it was so rough up there, they couldn’t get up there. And so most, I think there was five of us on there, five trumpeters, from different companies you know. And I was the only one didn’t get sick. I was stupid, I got all the extra duty. But I was compensated by it there. When we did get into the nice weather about over half way over, it calmed down nice, you know, and the sun came out. And of course, the officers, they went up on deck and that, we could go on deck and they took me up on their quarters and excused me from duty on account of me, you know, taking over when all these guys were sick.

Description

Mr. Bourne describes the trip from Halifax to Great Britain in a small convoy, losing two men in rough weather, and doing extra bugling duty since he wasn’t seasick.

Francis Bourne

Francis Bourne was born in West-Ham, England, on June 6, 1899. His family moved to Canada in 1906. With his parents’ permission, he joined the 90th (Royal Winnipeg) Rifles in September 1915, becoming a bugler. Once in England, Mr. Bourne was attached to the 10th Brigade, 2 Company which served as a supply battalion in France. While not seeing direct action, the risk to the supply lines from shelling and bombing was high. After returning home from the war, Mr. Bourne had a variety of employment before finally joining the Canadian National Railroad in 1922. During the Second World War, Mr. Bourne answered his country’s call once more, training personnel in the 2nd Armoured Car Division at Winnipeg. Married and widowed twice, Mr. Bourne died on May 16, 1993.

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