From the Upper and Lower Decks
Photo from Sailor Remember, pg. 92
Officers and ratings of the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve (RCNVR, the Wavy Navy) and Combined Operations who underwent training or trained others in gunnery and seamanship skills at Givenchy III Navy base on Vancouver Island during WW2 very likely said many positive things about the experience.
The following excerpts from Sailor Remember by William Pugsley and "Dad, Well Done" (Naval Memoirs of Leading Seaman Coxswain Doug Harrison) are both positive and enlightening. It is unclear when Pugsley trained at the Comox Spit or his rank at the time, but I think the date may be prior to October, 1943, before the Navy base expanded to include Combined Operations training. Harrison, a member of Combined Operations - five years later he became my father - trained others (seamanship skills) beginning in January, 1944 when the base went by the name Givenchy III (as of Oct. 1943) and was a Combined Operations training camp.
Assault training at The Spit, Jan. 1944. Photo by National Film Bd.
Comox, BC. Beyond Belief
in the naval world. The scenery is beyond belief.
The establishment there - a rifle range and seamanship
school - was laid out on a long broad sand spit.
There were wooden walkways between most of
the huts but some of the minor paths were corduroy,
laid with rusty sections of old boiler pipe from British
warships that had put into this secluded anchorage
to refit their boilers many, many years ago.
Aerial view of The Spit, 1930s. Photo courtesy of Comox Museum
of boat pulling in whalers, and practising raising and
lowering boats. At the order "Away Seaboat", one half
of the class would scramble up into a whaler which was
suspended by davits over the edge of the long wooden jetty.
At the final order, "Slip", the boat dropped into the water,
the crew pulled valiantly at the oars, the boat ran smack
into the muddy beach, and everyone fell over backwards.
This was always good for a laugh.
'Pulling cutters, at six in the morning!' Photo - Sailor Remember, pg. 94
waters of the Straits of Georgia. Directly opposite, and
extending away in either direction as far as the eye could
see, was a towering range of snow-capped mountains.
Billowy clouds drawn up in martial array hung constantly
over their peaks and the sun streaking through their
occasionally broken ranks clothed each snowy summit
in turn with a dazzling white splendour.
Young Ordinary Seamen, who'd never before been
away from their home towns. or perhaps even beyond
their own neighbourhoods, would sit on the beach
in the late afternoons and gaze across the still water
at this breathtaking sight. Cradled amid the peaks
directly before them lay a vast white glacier, and even
the name was something to stir the imagination -
"Forbidden Plateau"...
Painting found at viewing platform between Courtenay and Comox, 2012
scraping all the grease in the world out of the biggest
pots and pans in the world. When it wasn't that,
it was dishing up after meals in the Instructors' mess.
Any self-respecting matelot would be satisfied to use
one plate for his dinner, eating his "duff" - desert -
off his meat plate. This means less to wash up later.
But do Petty Officers do this? Do even Leading Seamen do it,
when they have a messman to wash up for them afterwards?
They certainly don't. They use all the dishes they can think of.
(Pages 96 - 98)
. . . . .
From "Dad, Well Done"
A Slap on the Back
In 1944 I was stationed in barracks on a piece of land called
“The Spit” - Givenchy III, known as Cowards Cove - at Comox
on Vancouver Island, B.C. About a half mile of water separated
the spit from Comox and to get ashore we had to be inspected and
travel to Comox on a real Liberty boat. It was absolute heaven there.
Just normal routine; I trained a few zombies on cutters,
and I was on the navy softball and hardball teams and we
played as many as six games a week under a good coach.
Back centre - Coach George Hobson (white T-shirt)
Front centre - Doug Harrison, Navy Team 1, 3rd base
It was beautiful to see the snow-capped mountains
and the contours - which had various names.
I also looked after Captain Windyer’s sailboat and prepared it
when he wished to go for a sail. One day quite a wind was blowing
and I was called by the captain to prepare the boat for sailing.
“Isn’t it a bit windy today, sir, for sailing such a small craft?” I said.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” he remarked. He hadn’t gone a hundred
fathoms when the sailboat tipped over and he was bottoms up.
We rescued him with an LCM barge, and when he came ashore -
hair flattened and really soaked - he never even glanced my way.
I wouldn’t have either.
There was a government oyster breeding ground at Givenchy
There was a government oyster breeding ground at Givenchy
and at low tide we would get bags full of the largest ones
and put them in the water near the barracks, so, when the tide
came in no one saw them and when tide went out we had a feast.
We cooked a lot, but some of the large ones we ate raw.
They were hard to swallow, the large ones, and we often needed
a slap on the back to be able to move it down our throat.
Navy cutters. Photo from The Land of Plenty
I acted as Coxswain on large navy cutters as soldiers worked
the oars. This was fun, getting the proper stroke amongst 18
green oarsmen. If the rhythm was wrong and an oar caught
a crab (got stuck in the water), the effect was that nearly
every thwart was cleared of oarsmen and bedlam prevailed.
“Stroke! Stroke! Stroke!” I hollered, just bursting from laughter.
The oars are about 12 feet long and are they ever heavy. To give
the soldiers a well-earned rest I would give the order “Rest oars.”
Then the oars would be pulled in, rested on each side of the cutter,
and the soldiers could rest their weary arms on the looms for awhile.
I enjoyed giving the order to ‘toss oars’. With this the huge oars
were brought from the water and as quickly as possible tossed up
in the air, and of course the water came pouring down from
the blades in a regular storm for a minute and everyone got
soaked to the hide, including me, but on a hot day
it was refreshing. I was longing for a swim anyway.
Doug Harrison, Chuck Rose 1944-45
From Comox District Free Press, May 3, 1945
At Givenchy L/Sea Rose and I took a job washing dishes,
but we gave everyone to understand that we had to be at
the beach at 1300 hours (1:00 p.m.). There were 150 ratings
to start but many were shipped out. If we were going to be late
we grabbed dishes half full and said, “you’re done”,
because we couldn’t keep the girls waiting.*
Then one day, the day we had been waiting for came - V.E. day -
Then one day, the day we had been waiting for came - V.E. day -
and what a celebration. They poured beer in my hair,
there was no routine, but nothing untoward happened.
Doug’s notes also say “...everything went mad and uncontrolled...”
The fellows were just so glad, that it gave us time
to think back and count our blessings. No, I cannot
recall anything unusual happening to write about.
It had a sobering effect on most of us who had been
in Combined Operations under the White Ensign.
Of course, I said we were very very happy,
but we were also very very lucky and knew it.
Soon we went to H.M.C.S. Naden, with none of us
volunteering for the Japanese theatre of war, although
we were all asked by a recruiting officer. A naval
photographer took a picture of six of us because
we all joined the same day, went through 23 months
overseas together and were going to be
discharged all on the same day too.
Back (L - R) L/S Don Westbrook, L/S Chuck Rose, L/S Joe Spencer
Front (L - R) L/S Joe Watson, L/S Doug Harrison, L/S Arthur Warrick
(L/S - Leading Seaman)
Unattributed photos by G. Harrison
