Remembrance Day is a time when veteran and Cordova Bay resident Don Russell reflects on his Korean War service aboard the HMCS Athabaskan.
The formidable tribal-class destroyer was built in Halifax during the Second World War and served three tours of duty during the Korean conflict, leaving from Esquimalt for her first in July 1950. Her role was to participate in patrols, anti-submarine protection, ship escorts, the capturing ports, transporting troops, evacuations, and bombardments.
Barely age 20, Russell was aboard the Athabaskan in Korea for 18 months and remembers the intensity of that time quite vividly. The ship was freezing cold, even below deck where Russell worked as a stoker in the boiler room.
"It was so cold there, there were icicles hanging off the fans in the boiler room. People don't know how cold it is."
Another part of his role was delivering signal messages, which was intense at times.
"I was, in the middle of the night, in a 20-foot whale boat running the engine in pitch black, and there's ships out there firing over our heads," he said. "We were taking a signal from our ship to another one, and they didn't want to light up the lamps because there were shore guns."
Now 91, Russell didn't know if the Athabaskan took any fire, but said it gave lots. One time, they were targeted by shooters from the beach, and the captain said, 'gun, fire' and there was nothing left on the beach. From the boiler room, Russell could feel the reverberations.
Another time, the ship had to transfer Admiral Mainguy to a fast carrier of Task Force 77. While en route, a Panther jet crashed two miles ahead. Charging at top speed, Athabaskan had the pilot safely aboard within ten minutes. But unfortunately, there was not enough time to reap the rescue rewards.
"It was the custom in TF 77 that when a pilot from a carrier was rescued by another ship, that carrier rewarded the rescuer with enough ice cream to feed the entire ship's company, but Athabaskan had to hurry back to her task unit and was unable to take advantage of this offer," read a Department of National Defense publication.
Though he shared the journey with 365 men on the boat, Russell said he only got to know the men in his mess because there was never a shortage of things to do.
North Korea was the most intense part of his nearly 10-year Navy career, which also included working as a junior engineer, a watchkeeper, and seaman. He was on the Mi'kmaq, a travel class destroyer, that went to Gibraltar, Malta, Naples, Nice and was also drafted on a ship that Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth took on their Tour of Canada.
He said that as a young man, being in Korea was "just a job," and that he never thought anything of it.
"You're too young, too stupid to know the difference," he said.
For him, Remembrance Day is a period of reflection on the impacts of war, and how it affected those around him.
"I have lots of friends that were in the Second World War and they survived, some with scars. One of the people I know came back with half his face burnt off. He was one really nice fellow, but he had to live with that for the rest of his life."
"I lived through it, the war, the rationing, all that stuff."
