Gun fight in open sea

In fact, we got in several gun fights in the, the Channel, yes. You sailed from Plymouth in the evening, early evening, and you were pretty well up all night, and you were back in the morning. Which is very different from the rest of the convoys. And, like it or not, you'd run into something, which we did. We, the main gun fight was just after D-Day, on June, June the 8th. We had a couple of developments, but the major one was, what they call a headache, and it was a radio receiver that they could keep tuned to the German frequencies, and an operator who spoke German. And on June the 8th , he heard the German's say, "Fire torpedoes four." And told us, and we turned. I saw 3 torpedo tracks going down our side, I don't know where the 4th one went, but anyway, we avoided it. And, anyway, that, that little encounter turned out to be four against four, and we, one German, the leader, was, no not the leader, one of them was blown up, one was driven on the rocks, we and Haida did that, at full speed, and sent the other two back to Brest badly beaten up. It was quite a night.

Mr. Howe talks about a gun-fight in the English Channel after D-Day.

William Howe

Mr. Howe was born in Port Arthur, now Thunder Bay, Ontario, on 26 August 1922. His father was a cabinet minister and was in London during bombing attacks. His father survived being torpedoed on the way to visit him overseas and was also involved in a sea wreck. Mr. Howe did his naval training in England where he also completed lieutenant's training. He served aboard HMCS Turbon, Dorchester, Sackville and Huron. At the end of the war, Mr. Howe was appointed as a Naval Aid to the Governor of Hong Kong and began a career in politics, on his return to England with the support of MacKenzie King.