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Ottawa’s Gerald Bowen hand-delivered news of the launch of the Second World War to his Centretown neighbourhood.
Bowen was then a young paperboy for the Ottawa Citizen, which put out a special morning edition on Sept. 4, 1939, the day after Britain and France declared war on Germany.
“As I went around my route, people were running out of their houses in their pyjamas to get their papers,” remembers Bowen, 90. “It was all very exciting.”
Bowen, a student at Lisgar Collegiate Institute, was so eager to take part in the war that he enlisted in September 1942 even though still a month shy of his 17th birthday. He forged a baptismal certificate and joined the ranks of the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve.
It was the beginning of a military career that would span four decades and take him to the icy North Atlantic, where he hunted marauding German U-boats; to London, where a V2 rocket attack knocked him senseless; and to Korea, where he spent a long night in a minefield.
For the past two decades, Bowen has been a volunteer interpreter at the Canadian War Museum, talking to students and visitors about his experiences of war.
He expects to serve in that role for the final time during this year’s Remembrance Day ceremonies at the museum. A stroke has made it difficult for him to get around and his mouth dries quickly when he talks.
“I think this will be the last time,” he says from his room at the Perley and Rideau Veterans’ Health Centre.
This year’s Remembrance Day comes 70 years after the end of the Second World War. It’s estimated that up to 70 million people died during the its six years: more than 27,000 people for every day of the war.
Gerald Bowen’s war began on the HMCS Royalmount, a frigate responsible for guarding merchant ships as they travelled in convoys across the Atlantic.
Ottawa Citizen front page marking the start of of the Second World War.
Bowen, a telegraphist, didn’t like much about the North Atlantic. “It was cold and it was rough,” he said.
German U-boats hunted in groups — wolf packs of up to a dozen submarines — designed to overwhelm a convoy’s defences. By 1942, their co-ordinated attacks on supply ships were threatening to drive a beleaguered Britain from the war. That summer, one Allied ship was going to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean every four hours.
The U-boats usually attacked at night and Bowen remembers the horror of an oil tanker being hit. “I have a vivid memory of that: Suddenly, night was day and there was a huge explosion that went up,” he says.
Only four crew members survived the blast; they were so slick with oil that they had to be fished out of the water by their hair. “They were burned and choking with oil and blind,” says Bowen. “Three died that night I remember.”
Bowen’s closest brush with death came in London during shore leave in January 1945. He was staying at a boarding house and had just settled himself in the first floor bathroom when a German V2 rocket — the world’s first long-range ballistic missile — slammed into a nearby home.
The bathroom window exploded from the force of the blast, and Bowen was blown off the toilet and out the door.
“I guess I was pretty stunned and I came to with the landlady screaming,” he remembers. “But I never knew if she was screaming because of the fact half her house was gone or because I was lying there half naked.”
Gerald Bowen holds of picture of himself when he was in the Canadian Army. Bowen served in the navy during the Second World War, then with the army duing the Korean War.
After the war, Bowen left the navy and joined the public service, but he found the office life hard to stomach. “The same pencil, the same desk, every day, that wasn’t for me.”
So, in 1948, after getting married, Bowen enlisted in the Canadian Army, trained as a paratrooper, and was commissioned as an officer. He served with the Royal 22nd Regiment, the Van Doos, during the Korean War.
Bowen said it was a much different experience than his previous war since the Van Doos were dug into trench positions, and were involved in patrols, raids and defensive battles. He remembers leading a unit to repair a compromised minefield under the cover of darkness. The men had to do all the work by hand and complete the job before dawn made them sitting ducks for North Korean snipers.
“It was a tricky business,” he says.
Bowen spent 33 years in the Canadian military and also served in Cypress, Israel, Lebanon and Germany. He retired as a decorated major, and received one more honour last week when he was one of 12 Canadian war veterans to receive an investiture in the Order of St. George. Founded in 2003, the order is a charity that supports the families Canadian soldiers killed and wounded in the line of duty.
aduffy@ottawacitizen.com
查看原文...
Bowen was then a young paperboy for the Ottawa Citizen, which put out a special morning edition on Sept. 4, 1939, the day after Britain and France declared war on Germany.
“As I went around my route, people were running out of their houses in their pyjamas to get their papers,” remembers Bowen, 90. “It was all very exciting.”
Bowen, a student at Lisgar Collegiate Institute, was so eager to take part in the war that he enlisted in September 1942 even though still a month shy of his 17th birthday. He forged a baptismal certificate and joined the ranks of the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve.
It was the beginning of a military career that would span four decades and take him to the icy North Atlantic, where he hunted marauding German U-boats; to London, where a V2 rocket attack knocked him senseless; and to Korea, where he spent a long night in a minefield.
For the past two decades, Bowen has been a volunteer interpreter at the Canadian War Museum, talking to students and visitors about his experiences of war.
He expects to serve in that role for the final time during this year’s Remembrance Day ceremonies at the museum. A stroke has made it difficult for him to get around and his mouth dries quickly when he talks.
“I think this will be the last time,” he says from his room at the Perley and Rideau Veterans’ Health Centre.
This year’s Remembrance Day comes 70 years after the end of the Second World War. It’s estimated that up to 70 million people died during the its six years: more than 27,000 people for every day of the war.
Gerald Bowen’s war began on the HMCS Royalmount, a frigate responsible for guarding merchant ships as they travelled in convoys across the Atlantic.
Ottawa Citizen front page marking the start of of the Second World War.
Bowen, a telegraphist, didn’t like much about the North Atlantic. “It was cold and it was rough,” he said.
German U-boats hunted in groups — wolf packs of up to a dozen submarines — designed to overwhelm a convoy’s defences. By 1942, their co-ordinated attacks on supply ships were threatening to drive a beleaguered Britain from the war. That summer, one Allied ship was going to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean every four hours.
The U-boats usually attacked at night and Bowen remembers the horror of an oil tanker being hit. “I have a vivid memory of that: Suddenly, night was day and there was a huge explosion that went up,” he says.
Only four crew members survived the blast; they were so slick with oil that they had to be fished out of the water by their hair. “They were burned and choking with oil and blind,” says Bowen. “Three died that night I remember.”
Bowen’s closest brush with death came in London during shore leave in January 1945. He was staying at a boarding house and had just settled himself in the first floor bathroom when a German V2 rocket — the world’s first long-range ballistic missile — slammed into a nearby home.
The bathroom window exploded from the force of the blast, and Bowen was blown off the toilet and out the door.
“I guess I was pretty stunned and I came to with the landlady screaming,” he remembers. “But I never knew if she was screaming because of the fact half her house was gone or because I was lying there half naked.”
Gerald Bowen holds of picture of himself when he was in the Canadian Army. Bowen served in the navy during the Second World War, then with the army duing the Korean War.
After the war, Bowen left the navy and joined the public service, but he found the office life hard to stomach. “The same pencil, the same desk, every day, that wasn’t for me.”
So, in 1948, after getting married, Bowen enlisted in the Canadian Army, trained as a paratrooper, and was commissioned as an officer. He served with the Royal 22nd Regiment, the Van Doos, during the Korean War.
Bowen said it was a much different experience than his previous war since the Van Doos were dug into trench positions, and were involved in patrols, raids and defensive battles. He remembers leading a unit to repair a compromised minefield under the cover of darkness. The men had to do all the work by hand and complete the job before dawn made them sitting ducks for North Korean snipers.
“It was a tricky business,” he says.
Bowen spent 33 years in the Canadian military and also served in Cypress, Israel, Lebanon and Germany. He retired as a decorated major, and received one more honour last week when he was one of 12 Canadian war veterans to receive an investiture in the Order of St. George. Founded in 2003, the order is a charity that supports the families Canadian soldiers killed and wounded in the line of duty.
aduffy@ottawacitizen.com
查看原文...
