大象传媒

These stories were gathered by Paul Porter aboard the toucan 1 which went out into lough foyle with canadian veteran s on board to remember absent colleagues on VE day 2005.
Roland Marshall
I especially remember VE day - we were at Lisahally having come in on the Atlantic run the night before. the next morning the mainbrace was spliced and about two thirds of the crew were given leave. we took a little train up to Derry and the citizens of the town were banging pots and pans and dancing in the streets - all the pubs,cafes and cinemas were open and it was a friendlt, joyful time. My shipmates gave me a bit of rum so I ended up sleeping it off in a movie theatre.Then i crossed the bridge and went to a dancein a church hall.i was dancing with a local girl until when i was leaving with her an RN fella stepped up and claimed she was his. Then we all took the tarin back to lisahally - all 300 sailors weaved down the raod - they were letting off flares and the search lights were lighting up the sky.
it wasn't all fun during the war though - i recall once on the approach to the Azores the laundry on the ship blew up and sailors were burned and injured - so you can find danger in unexpected places. After VE day we went to a rest home in portstewart run by the Salvation army - we were glad it was over.
Gwen Wilson
I remember ve day clearly - it started off as a day of great joy in Halifax where we lived - at last our boys would be coming home and the fleets of ships risking life and limb out in the Atlantic would be no longer leaving from our city.for some reason the men in barracks or on ships weren't allowed to drink to celebrate the end of hostilities and so there was rioting in halifax - liquor stores were broken into and once crowds got drunk they started looting other stores. There was eve an announcemnet on the radio for poeple to return good swhich they'd taken. I had been approached in the street by a group of sailors who'd handed me some loot - I was too embarrassed to go to the police.
During wartime we were rationed too as in Englnad and we had shortages of everything. We also had to do our bit for the war effort by collecting aluminium.
The one thing I will never forget and was happy to never hear again was the pounding of feet on the road past our house en route down to the quay. the sound of those soldiers going off to join troop ships was a sad and haunting sound.
James Butterfield
I was in the Merchant navy for the first four years of the war dodging the uboats eventually i joined the CRN reserves and was on the Derry run escorting the convoys this time.our corvette was a happy crew and even though our turn around time in Derry was only a coup,e of days I always looked forward to getting into Derry - like coming home.we'd spend two weeks crossing the Atlantic and then a week on exercise in lough Foyle - training how to deal with uboats - th uboats weren't as plentiful after the war turned in 1943 but they were still a real and present danger.
i was always lucky on the corvette but on mercahnt ships id been bombed and sunkWe were sunk once in the indian ocean - I spent 3 days in a dingy waiting to be picked up. Thank God it wasn't the Atlantic. we floated around south of Madagascar till we were rescued and fortunately we weren't captured - it took me three months to get back home after that.
Luckily i was too young to feel the fear although plenty around me did get distressed. After VE day I signed on for Pacific duty. Sailors were given the option of opting out after Ve day but for me if you were going to fight you had to see it through

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