Tag Archives: Legion Magazine

Nearly 400 years on, warship still yielding secrets

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An item from the Legion Magazine.
Front Lines
Front Lines

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Nearly 400 years on, warship still yielding secrets

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

Commissioned by Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus amid his eight-year war with Poland-Lithuania, it was to be the most powerful warship to sail the Baltic Sea.

But Vasa, top-heavy with lavish decor—much of it celebrating the king’s family history—and 64 bronze guns, twice as many as its original design called for, barely sailed a kilometre when a wind gust toppled the 69-metre vessel on Aug. 10, 1628.

Water flooded its gunports, which had been opened to fire a salute as the ship set out on its maiden voyage. It was unable to right itself.

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Wine mug- What doesn't kill you makes you stronger
Veterans Benefits Guide
Military Milestones
Military Milestones

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CAF to the rescue: the hundred-year flood

STORY BY PAIGE GILMAR

April 17, 2019, was just like any other rainy night in southern and northern-central Ontario.

But within a span of the evening, rainfall spread to southern Quebec and New Brunswick—and would be on and off again until early May.

By April 20, however, coupled with gusty winds between 90-100 km/h, the rainfall had totalled from 35 to 60 millimetres.

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Drone on drone: Demolition derby of the skies over Ukraine

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An item from the Legion Magazine.
Front Lines
Front Lines

TELEDYNE FLIR

Drone on drone: Demolition derby of the skies over Ukraine

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

Military drones may not be a new phenomenon, but combatants in Ukraine have taken remote warfare to new heights, pitting drone against drone in what amounts to a kind of airborne demolition derby in the skies over the embattled country.

The weapons of choice in these drone-on-drone battles are not bullets, missiles or bombs, but in many cases cheap, hobby-quality quadcopters and the like, for which altitude and blunt force have proven the great equalizers in aerial duels with more sophisticated, and expensive, hardware.

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Veterans Benefits Guide
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Vancouver’s ship killer

STORY BY PAIGE GILMAR

It was April 5, 1958, and Victor Dolmage was given one monumental task: to press a button.

Consulting engineer for the Ministry of Public Work, Dolmage would do just that at 9:31 a.m. One-fifth of a second later, more than half a million tonnes of rock, water and debris would shoot 300 metres into the air, creating one of the largest non-nuclear explosions to ever take place.

Marking its 65th anniversary, this event was none other than the explosion of Ripple Rock, an underwater twin-peaked mountain in North Vancouver’s Seymour Narrows, which became a notorious “ship killer.”

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Ronald Moyes: Tail gunner

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An item from the Legion Magazine.
Front Lines
Front Lines

Stephen J. Thorne/Legion magazine

Ronald Moyes: Tail gunner

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

They had come in out of the darkness at 600 kilometres an hour, a pair of Focke-Wulf Fw 190 night fighters, closing fast and guns ablazing 18,000 feet (5,500 metres) over the German homeland.

Sitting in the coldest, most vulnerable spot on a seven-man Halifax and Lancaster bombers, tail gunner Sergeant Ronald Moyes, the 18-year-old son of an immigrant farmer from Coquitlam, B.C., would pick them up at about 550 metres out.

Tracking the incoming enemy with his four .303-calibre machine guns on a single trigger, their ammunition belts running the length of the aircraft, Moyes would call out over the radio to the skipper up front, “fighter, corkscrew starboard” or “fighter, corkscrew port.”

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Veterans Benefits Guide
Military Milestones
Military Milestones

© National Portrait Gallery, By Bassano Ltd., London; NPG X154339

James Forbes-Robertson and the Monchy Ten

STORY BY PAIGE GILMAR

“Forbes said, ‘Stand to,’” wrote Sergeant Anthony James Stacey in his diary. “The rest followed him.”

In his entries, Stacey reflected on not only on his time with the Newfoundland Regiment, but also serving under the renowned Lieutenant-Colonel James Forbes-Robertson, who was one of nine other men who stood guard of the French village of Monchy-Le-Peux in April of 1917. They would later be known as the Monchy Ten, with Forbes-Robertson commanding the victory during the larger Battle of Arras and earning the Distinguished Service Order for his actions at the village. He had previously received the Military Cross and would later receive the Victoria Cross while serving with the Border Regiment.

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