Minesweeper Sinks

Heroes Remember

Minesweeper Sinks

Transcript

Just after we had left our anchorage and were heading north, there was quite, I happened to be at my locker which was in the after part of the ship and there was quite a large explosion. Of course any explosion in the water near by or anything and you get a concussion in the, from the water. So in any event, as soon as this explosion happened I immediately headed for the “Y” gun deck, which is on the stern. You try to get out into the open as soon as you can, because you don't know whether you're hit or if it was somebody else. But in any event, in the few seconds it took be to get from my locker to the “Y” gun deck, I could observe just two or three hundred yards astern of us there was a minesweeper which apparently had struck a mine and of course on these smaller ships their forward magazine for the forward gun is in the bow of the ship and in this event presumably the mine exploded the magazine so the entire bow was blown off this minesweeper and as I looked, it was just going down bow first and the propeller was still rotating as it disappeared and we did hear later that there was only three fellas that were blown clear, but in our case I mean we just kept on going. Of course we were on our way back to Southampton. But that was really the only ship that I saw sunk that day, there were a few others. I did see a hospital ship that had struck a mine as well. But in any event there was very little air action or anything of that type, so we, the day itself wasn't as difficult as we thought.

Description

Mr. Gorsline talks about how he watched a minesweeper sink on his return trip to Southampton.

John Henry Gorsline

Mr. Gorsline was born on November 12, 1924 in Collingwood, Ontario. He joined the Navy in November of 1942 on his 18th birthday. Mr. Gorsline served aboard the HMCS Prince David as a radar operator and returned to civilian life in September 1945.

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