: Mien On Merchant Marine

“By ELSIE ANDERSON

a ‘Just Do Their Bal”

1 ES BOLSTER, British merchant marine, hates being called a hero. He’s just a mer-
chant seaman, doing a job he’s well trained to do in the “black hole.”
“Sure it’s dangerous,” he told me, “but to tell the truth, when bombs are falling all

Tehund you,
St tis
a

siailing from London, Mike’s
fiap2 at sea nine years, since_he
233 nineteen. His father, shell-
‘of eked in the last war, died ten
famnl ES ago and he supports his
ther in London with his two
7h ers and 2 young brother still
~, piome.
33 ages, they've felt the blitz,”
‘e said. “I lost a young brother
: be ”

lite) 2SKed him about the rest of
rete! family. :
a Another brother was killed in
pend) battle of Narvik,” he said.
of peat Was in April 1941. He was
at wt Be Suffolk. His lez was blown
wha 2nd his stomach torn open.”
at bing through his wallet he
ing piuced a picture of a young,
ye | tetas Emeglish lad.

ury @ie€ wasn’t like me—he was
dom@rt,” Mike remarked. “I had
wae C2¥E School early and go to
ent k, but he got an education. fT
elo) Cm@ber how my mother carried
icy when he joined up. He was in
Ibe Royal Navy, not the mer-

ean ‘nt marine. He wrote a letter

to my mother telling her he want-
ed to do his bit and ali that.”
e e e

ie WAS evident Mike loved
talking about this brother of
his. Something he said a little

later showed how much he
thought of him.

TI had asked him what it was
that made him always go baclz
to the sea. He said it wasn’t
bravery that made a man go baclkr
and go back, knowing the hard-
hips and the dangers, realizing
that each trip might be the last,
spending the greatest part of his
life apart from his friends and
his folks, searching strange
towns for a friendly face.

“Well,” said Mike, “this may
sound funny to you. But one
thing I always think of is my
brother. And when I get my
hands on a gun I always hope
it's my bullet that brings down
the plane that’s bombing us. You
can’t tell whose bullet does the
trick, but I always think maybe
it was one of mine.

there’s no time to think of being brave or being scared. You just go to work
ei, Swinging lifeboats off the davits and getting ready to leave the ship. If you have a gun,
: yall USe it as long as you can.”

“And for another thing — well,
I've been going to sea for a good
many years. What else could TI
do? WHere’s another thing you
may think funny: I’ve got now
so I don’t think I could stand it
on land. When I hear a chap
talking about getting up and go-
ing to work in the morning, I
wonder sometimes how he sticks
it. At sea you’ve no boss—there’s
not the formality in the merchant
navy same as in the Royal Navy,
you know—vwe call the captain
“chief” and the discipline is our
own responsibility. And like that
fellow Laskier said, that's a
sterner discipline than any that
comes down from the top.”

e Ss eo
TKE was aboard the Lan-
castria assisting in the
evacuation at Dunkirk. He told

of Canadian boys, with their un-
failing “Roll Out the Barrel,” and
when the Lancastria was bombed
he saw survivors machine-gunned
as they clung to the sides of the
ship. Of the 2000 soldiers and

r
of i

THE PEOPLE
ad
OckES d =
We 104 Shelly Bidg.,
oa : Vancouver, B. G.,
msi February 6, 1945.
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) te -
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It is

News=

We are, there=

Asa

A lonely merchant marine gunner stands guard. Merchant
ships of every type are now serving on convoy duty to
deliver the goods to our allies.

Civilians aboard the Mancastria
only about 50 were saved, Mike
said.

“Not many of those soldiers
could swim,” he commented. “T
had a life preserver, but one of
the fellows near me hadn’t the
strength to keep up, so I gave
it to him. We were in the water
about three hours before we were
picked up—the 50 of us who could
keep up and who’d managed to
dodge the gunfire.”

“I've heard people over here
grumble about rationing. All I can
Say is, they should have been on
that boat. The ship carreid food
for the crew of about 30 or 40,
they'd picked up soldiers evacu-
ated from the beach at Dunkirk,
and then our bunch. Well, there
Was just no use trying to make
the food stretch, because there
must have been about 2000 on
board by that time, and it would
have been like dividing up the
five loaves and two little fishes,
So we went without till we made
port. And we had to go the long
way round, at that.

“You should have seen those

New Film

Afriean

(Uses the pent-up
: power of the United Na-
tions, the convoy that opened
the campaign to drive the
Axis from North Africa was
described as the greatest ar-
mada the world has ever

known. Included in this huge
congress of shipping were 17 Ca-
nadian corvettes built in Canada
and manned by ratings of the
Royal Canadian Navy.

First complete motion picture
report of the new front is “Pin-
eers on Axis Europe” now re-
leased in the “Canada Carries On”
series issued by the National Film
Board. Opening with a montage
of seige cannon of astounding size
used by the Germans in their
drive to the Russian Caucasus,
“Pincers on Axis Europe” depicts
the assault on French North Af
rica and Tunisia to link up with
the British 8th Army driving up
Tripoli from the east and reaches
a logical conclusion in the large-
scale bombing raids on Italy.

Observers flying in the protec-
tive umbrella spread above the gi-
gantic convoy called the mass

e

people when they finally got
something to eat,” Mike smiled,
remembering. “When food was

found for us, it was brought over
the side on cranes. Tins of corned
beef were handed around. That
eorned beef tasted better than
any banquet could ever taste, I
ean tell you.”’

e e e

H® HAD difficulty getting ac-
quainted here, he told me.

“People seem rather stiff,’ he
believed. “Over in England the
girls think the Canadian boys are
fine. American movies have
something to do with that. They
like the accent. But over here I’ve
heard people say they don’t like
the English. I expect that’s be-
cause of our accent.”

He liked the idea of the Sea-
men’s Club. “Men need a homey
sort of place they can go, where
they can write letters home, or sit
and read, and have their glass of
beer. If I'm ever back here—and
IT hope to come back again, war or
no war—I shall look forward to
seeing it in full swing.”

Deseribes
Battle

movement of ships, men and ma-
terial, the most astonishing sight
ever seen from the air. Vessels
of every type and tonnage, supply
ships, transports, liners, battle-
ships, aireraft carriers, swarms
of destroyers, corvettes and mine-
Sweepers filled the horizons.
Past the headland of Gibraltar’s
Rock ancient Greeks called the
Pillars of Hercules, assault craft
landed on beaches selected in ad-
vance because of hard sand
needed to give traction te charg-
ing tanks. Running under the
guns of FErench-held ports of

Casablanca, Oran and Algiers,
American troops swiftly over-
Came resistance by bewildered

Vichy officials. After ten action-
filled days British and American
armored columns were converg-
ing on Tunis and Bizerte.

Enveloped by the lightning
thrust as the first wave of Allied
might rolled aside resistance, sur-
prised members of the Axis ar-
miistice commission were captured
in the occupation of Casablanca.
Like Himmler’s “tourists,” these
German and Italian locusts had
already begun to pick the bones
of lands conquered without
struggle.