I’ve got your back

From the Legion Magazine.

I’ve got your back

Story and photography by Stephen J. Thorne
There is an adage that is embraced by all the military, but especially the infantry: I’ve got your back.

It’s fundamental to any successful endeavour against an enemy in battle. But who’s got your back when the battlefield is life and the enemy is yourself?

Mutual support and endurance were common threads among the 27 wounded veterans of Afghanistan who I interviewed and photographed for the Legion Magazine series The Wounded, which is now an exhibition at the Canadian War Museum. For me, those attributes were highlights of the project.

Chasing U-744

It was a fat target for German U-boats: close to five dozen cargo ships laden with explosives, fuel and lumber for the war effort and life-sustaining food—grain, sugar, meat and frozen foods—which left Halifax on Feb. 22, 1944, bound for wartorn Britain.

Escorting the convoy were HMS Icarus, a destroyer, HMCS St. Catharines and four corvettes HMC ships Chaudière, Gatineau, Chilliwack and St. Fennel. They were about to take part in the second longest U-boat hunt of the Second World War.

Gatineau’s asdic (sonar) detected a U-boat on March 5. Immediately, the escorts, joined by British corvette HMS Kenilworth Castle, began to attack. U-744, commanded by Oberleutnant zur See Heinz Blischke, dove deep, manoeuvring to escape his attackers through that night and the next day.