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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
To them that go to sea in ships..,
By
This review is from: Bloody War (Mass Market Paperback)
It's now beginning to seem a long time ago.Hal Lawrence brings those dark days of WWII back to life with his excellent account of what it was like for a young man to enlist in the Navy and serve his country .He goes into great personal detail about serving ,mainly in the North Atlantic ,escorting troop and supply covoys from North America through the ever present German U-Boats,that lay in wait to send the ships to the bottom.As an indication of how dark those days were,in the year 1942.In that year we lost 1,664 ships-7,790,697 tons; 1,160 were sunk by U-Boats.This is one man's story how we fought back.Germany had built over 1100 U-Boats,and over 700 had been lost.In the end,of 40,000 men recruited into the U-Boat arm of the German Navy;28,000 had lost their lives and 5,000 had been taken prisoner. This book is very different in that it details the everyday life of what life was like .The battles at sea,the cold and lonely watches,calm seas as well as fierce winter storms in some of the world's harshest oceans,boredom as well as terrible fear,leave at home and in foreign ports and the friends who were so important through those long and perilous times. I was a young boy,living in Nova Scotia at the time,and I remember seeing the sailors who sailed on the ships mentioned throughout the book.At that time Sailors,Soldiers,and Airmen,were everywhere,coming,going and training.We got to recognize many of them ;the soldiers from the regimental badges on their caps and shoulder patches;but the sailors were even more recognizable as the names of their ships were on their hats. As November 11,rolls around we remember those who served,and the many who made the ultimate sacrifice;fortunately Hal Lawrence lived through it all and wrote his account in this book.This book was written in 1979,it is excellent in every way,and we are not going to see more of them as the ranks of those who served are dwindling fast.Those who served were in their early 20's at the time and are that means they would be in their early 90's today. Record No. SC066 Main Entry Lawrence, Hal, 1920-1994 Title Hal Lawrence collection Dates 1939-1995 Physical Description 2.3 m of textual records -- ca. 180 sound cassettes [~300 hrs.]. -- 71 photographs. -- 60 slides. -- 7 maps. -- 10 map transparencies. -- 3 posters. Bio/Admin History Hal Lawrence was born in 1920 in the Royal Engineers Barracks in Catham, Kent, England. His family later moved to Halifax, where Lawrence joined the Royal Canadian Navy in 1939 and served for 28 years. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for helping to sink a German submarine in World War II. Lawrence completed his wartime service with the destroyer Sioux, sailing long convoy runs to Russia. On June 6, 1944, off the coast of Normandy, Sioux participated in the direct bombardment of inland targets that precipitated the assault on Fortress Europe. Following service during the Second World War, he made a career with the peacetime navy. His last sea appointment, before retirement in 1965, was as senior officer in command of the Eleventh Escort Squadron. At the age of forty, Lawrence started his BA at the University of Ottawa and by the time he retired had his MA and began teaching at the University of Ottawa and later, at the University of Victoria. In 1970, he started an interpersonal and socioeconomic communications company in Ottawa and transferred it to Victoria in 1980. He was accepted as a fellow in the Royal Historical Society in 1993 and is the author of several books, including A Bloody War (1979), Tales of the North Atlantic (1985), and Victory at Sea (1989). He died April 11, 1994 at his home in Victoria, British Columbia. Scope and Content
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