Frank Charles Moore

Initial contact in the navy was as a stoker and I had the opportunity to become part of a group of young men who were apprenticing as junior engineers. And I spent three years as an apprentice and achieving the qualifications that enabled me to be Chief Engineer of the frigate that I then spent the remainder of the war in. And the frigate was the [HMCS] Saint John and we served part of the early experience in the frigate in the Atlantic, closer to the Azores, which were neutral during the war.

On one prolonged occasion, running short of fuel, and we took the opportunity to make use of our neutrality in the Azores and we took on fuel, it so happened that an enemy submarine was also fueling. But we both sides maintained our neutrality until we got out of harbour. Picked up a convoy of 31 ships that were taking more matériel on the only route that remained available at the time, which was over the North Cape of Norway into the port of Murmansk in Russia.

In due course, we also proceeded down the White Sea to Archangel to deliver two of the 31 ships and then we made our way back to Murmansk for fuel and it was at the tanker I became aware of the fact that in my absence, which had been a month at sea, in November and December, and found out that I had become a father of a son. And so he had been born for some 21 days before I understood that I was now a father. And I then didn’t have the opportunity to see him for another five months. We didn’t have cell phones then.