The Importance of Good Sea Legs

Heroes Remember

The Importance of Good Sea Legs

Transcript

At sea, the motion of the ship has to be counteracted with the lantern, that's a big part of it. If you have the lantern sitting on a pedestal and you don't move it up and down to compensate for the roll of the ship the, the light will be invisible at the other end, or difficult to see. Interviewer: So that would have been quite an art to make sure that you kept your light aimed. Oh, we all developed pretty good sea legs, you know, especially on a corvette. I remember on the binnacle of a ship, there's what they call an inclinometer, it's a needle that hangs vertical and the ship rolls around it, and on the Rivière du Loup the corvette I was on, this inclinometer is clocked up to 45 degrees, and it chipped paint on both sides in some of the storms we were in. And I timed the roll of the ship one time, it was 7 seconds from 45 degrees over here to 45 degrees over there and we were doing cartwheels before and after the same time, it was a lot of fun. I remember when I left the corvette, I went to a frigate which was just about twice the size of a corvette and every time the frigate would roll, I'd over compensate and bash my head on the wrong side. I was still bouncing in the corvette, it took a long time to get used to the slower motion. The convoy is in a rectangular shape and the corvettes are stationed on the outside of it, and say you're up on the starboard bound of the convoy and you have an echo over there, you would chase it and try to figure out whether it was a submarine, or a school of fish, or whatever it was. Even thermal changes would give an echo sometimes. And, if it persisted and you thought for sure it was a submarine, then you started up charging the thing right away.

Description

Mr. Roberge describes his experiences dealing with the rolling of the sea on a frigate and corvette.

Barney Roberge

Mr. Roberge was born in 1923, in Calgary, Alberta. He moved to Vancouver where he lived with his father until 1930. He then moved to Banff, Alberta, to live with his mother and step dad. He joined the navy as soon as war was declared. He wanted to join to see the world and to do his part in protecting the country. He talks about what it was like to be in the navy during the War.

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