HMS Dorchester Sinks

The water was warm, but I , you know, there's, there was a lot of people dead in the ship, because the ship was fairly smashed. I walked down the ship side and dove in off the bilge keels and we were there for a day, and, day and a quarter, I guess, day and a half. The boats, well there was, we only got one boat away, and that way they used that for wounded. But otherwise it was wreckage if, and your lifebelt, which were very poor lifebelt in those days. Canada produced the best life, lifebelt of the war, they did. I guess they first came out in about 1942, but there was a lot of practical experience to them, where there were a jacket, they had a whistle and a little light, and a thing that would hold your head up out of the water if you were unconscious, and they were very good. They were sometimes a nuisance to carry around, but they were very effective if the worst came to the worst. You get to hallucinate after a while. We went down about, it was Easter Sunday, 1942, it would be about....one o'clock in the afternoon I guess, and we were there til the day after Easter until the evening. They sent a cruiser and two destroyers to pick us up. You can have sharks around and.....certain other sea, sea hazards. I don't, I don't, I didn't actually see anybody taken by a shark. I don't know whether they were or not. The reconnaissance aircraft strafed us and the leader came around and hauled him off. The leader seemed to haul him off. The worse was the fuel oil, make you sick. And I know you, you used to get in it, you couldn't get away from it. Yeah, yes I remember throwing up, yeah, when we got aboard the destroyer.

Mr. Howe talks about being in the water after his ship was sunk.

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.