Category Archives: Legion Magazine

Sunken warship sews 80 years of environmental damage

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An item from the Legion Magazine.
Stephen J thorne

Van Landuy et al/Frontiers in Marine Science

Sunken warship sews 80 years of environmental damage

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

 

Shortly before 4 p.m. on Feb. 12, 1942, Royal Air Force planes attacked and sank V-1302—a German fishing trawler-turned-patrol boat—in Belgian waters of the North Sea.

The vessel formerly known as the John Mahn out of Hamburg was one of six auxiliary ships from the Kriegsmarine’s 13th flotilla that took up fixed positions during Operation Cerberus, more commonly known as The Channel Dash.

In what amounted to a convoy mission, some 200 vessels set out to escort the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen and the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau from Brittany in France through the English Channel to German ports.

 

 

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5 Volume Collection

Life in the trenches

STORY BY SHARON ADAMS

Excerpts from a memoir written by First World War veteran Charles Henry Savage, born in 1892 in Eastman, Que., who served in Messines, Belgium, in 1915-16.

Our first trip in the trenches was a short one for instructional purposes…Although late in October, there had not been a great deal of rain and the front line and communication trenches were in almost perfect condition when compared with those we took over after the rains had begun.

Trenches in this sector were very difficult indeed. The water was so close to the surface that the “trench” really consisted of a built up fortification. To build up a trench of that sort you must have sand in bags, and to get sand into bags requires much labour with a shovel. We only called it sand because it went into sand bags. Actually it was the stickiest of clay in most places.

 

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Once Canada’s darling, Afghan heart patient now in hiding

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An item from the Legion Magazine.
Stephen J thorne

Stephen J. Thorne

Once Canada’s darling, Afghan heart patient now in hiding

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

 

An Afghan boy who was once Canada’s darling is now an ailing young man in hiding and in fear for his life.

Djamshid Djan Popal, who came to Canada in 2004 for life-saving heart surgery thanks to donors from across the country, has faced hardship, health issues and physical threats since he returned to his war-ravaged homeland 18 years ago.

Taliban sympathizers wrongly assumed Djamshid’s good fortune was because his father Shafiullah was a coalition informant, a spy, or some other enemy. Shafiullah, a rock breaker, was beaten several times and imprisoned for three months after the country fell to the Taliban in August 2021.

 

 

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5 Volume Collection

Sharif Tarabay

Patrol ship dedicated to Black Victoria Cross recipient

STORY BY SHARON ADAMS

On Nov. 16, 1857, William Hall earned the British Empire’s highest bravery award, the Victoria Cross. He became the third Canadian and first Nova Scotian to do so.

Hall, of Horton, N.S., was the son of former Black slaves from the United States. He worked in Hantsport shipyards, before serving on a merchant vessel, followed by a couple of years in the United States navy.

In 1852, he enlisted in the Royal Navy in England, joining the crew of HMS Rodney where he earned medals from Britain and Turkey for his service during the Crimean War, when he lent a hand to ground forces operating the heavy gun batteries.

His career prospered. He was serving on HMS Shannon, which was escorting troops to China, when it was dispatched to help quell a mutiny in India.

 

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