Heading Overseas

Heroes Remember

Heading Overseas

Transcript

I left to go overseas from Halifax with a ship, the Awatea. It was about 1:30 in the morning. All of a sudden the hammock started to shake and the mast ends falling off the shelves and Frenchmen talking so fast, that I was in with them and I couldn't understand what was happening. So the life alarm come on and we had to get up to the top deck and the lifeboats were coming out, putting them down the side. So then, during this we see a destroyer cut across in front of us and it went straight up and it was hit and it was sunk. And that was destroyer Ingraham, 125 lives lost. And att that time, our ship was hit by torpedo and it put a hole in the front and we turned around to go back to Halifax.

Description

Mr. Hislop talks about a close call on a convoy heading overseas from Halifax.

Robert Hislop

Mr. Hislop was born in Shellbrook, Saskatchewan on May 6,1921. He grew up during the depression and calls it “the hungry 30s”. In November 1941, he joined the army and was very lonely being away from home for the first time. When he arrived overseas he traveled to Aldershot by train and got his first taste of the beautiful scenery. Mr. Hislop served as a truck driver and Vickers machine gun operator during his tour in Italy. After the war Mr. Hislop was married and worked at a General Motors garage.

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