Norman Heide (Primary Source)

There was a manning pool here in Vancouver. I went down there and applied and they needed cadet officers for future navigators. So I was accepted and given a travel warrant and I travelled all by myself at 16 right across Canada by train. Overnighted in Montreal, overnighted in Halifax and I ended up in a place called Hubbards, Nova Scotia and that was a training spot for potential navigators, etc. I took my training there and I travelled all the way back to Vancouver and I joined a ship down at CPR Pier B. And we took off from there loaded with war goods. I’m not sure what type and we went by ourselves, blacked-out, zigzag, all the way down the coast to the Panama Canal, joined up with a convoy and proceeded up to Ward, New York. And from there across south of Iceland and Greenland to England, to Liverpool mainly and unloaded our cargo there and then came back for more. I always remember the first time after we’d gone through Panama, we joined up with a convoy in the Caribbean and heading up, I guess would be off of Florida somewhere, a little further north. I was on the morning watch with the chief mate. He was in the chart room. And all of a sudden looking up ahead and it looked like these great big black donuts floating in the water. And I called to the chief mate and I told him. He was my teacher. I told him, I said it looks like big black donuts. Out he came, had a look. It was just getting light out. And these were military truck tires and there were crates and boxes and he says oh, some ship had been sunk previously and that was part of her cargo. And I always noticed that – later on I saw a few bodies floating in the water. Those that had life jackets on with a sort of a neckpiece, they were laying on their back with their legs spread out and their arms spread out and their mouths open. And those that didn’t have life jackets were laying on their stomach. Strange.