The Triangle run and service in the St. Lawrence.

Heroes Remember

The Triangle run and service in the St. Lawrence.

Transcript

We're on the, what they call the triangle run, for a long time. The triangle run was Boston, Halifax, St. John's in Newfoundland. And when we left Halifax, God knows where we went, all way out in the ocean somewhere. Took us about eight days to get, go from Halifax to St. John's, Newfoundland. We're out in the Gulf stream. Most of the time it was foggy, and especially in the summer time. So foggy, you'd have the convoy behind you, and you wouldn't see it until the last day. You'd get out on the Gulf Stream maybe and the, the fog would clear up, and you could see what was behind you. And we were, yeah it was a pretty rough trip at times too. You'd get real, real bad there. Then we were off doing the duties up through the St. Lawrence, the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The sub, subs were in there and the Magog. We were up there one time. We got a whole fleet of frigates. This was [inaudible] towards the end of the war. There was five or six frigates up doing a sweep. And something blew the end off the stern, off the Magog. Now, they wasn't sure if there was an accident, because all the depth charges were stored there, or whether it was a torpedo. But anyway, it blew the end off, didn't sink her. Blew the stern right off her, and there were round-robin depth charges everywhere. And somebody signalled to the, the corvette Shawinigan, "Conserve your depth charges." And then he signalled back, "Why? We got lots of them!"

Description

Mr. Carroll describes routes that he sailed on in the Atlantic. His service also brought him into the St. Lawrence bay where enemy submarines were known to frequent.

Francis Carroll

Mr. Carroll was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1916. He was one of 12 children, six girls and five boys. In 1927 he moved to Rockingham. Mr. Carroll's father was a bookkeeper in Halifax. For a few years during the depression of the 1930s Mr. Carroll served in the CNS, Canadian National Steamship service. He spent two to four years aboard CNS Boat Two, the Prince Henry, before joining the Navy in 1939. Mr. Carroll served aboard the HMCS Acadia, a ship that is now docked in Halifax harbour and serves as part of a naval museum. Mr. Carroll's services took him on the Triangle run, a route that included Boston to Halifax to Newfoundland. In 1941 Mr. Carroll married and had two children. After the war he worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs at Camp Hill Hospital in the re-establishing of credit to Veterans. In 1950-51 he managed to get a job at the dock yards in Halifax as a timekeeper where he worked for 29½ years before retiring.

Meta Data

Medium:: Video
Owner:: Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:: 02:24
Person Interviewed:: Francis Carroll
War, Conflict or Mission:: Second World War
Location/Theatre:: Canada
Battle/Campaign:: Battle of the Atlantic
Branch:: Navy
Units/Ship:: Acadia
Occupation:: Steward

Language selection

The Triangle run and service in the St. Lawrence.

Heroes Remember