Sarah Earldine Krys

My name is Sarah Earldine Krys. I was Adams then. I go by my second name, Earldine. I was in the Navy, and my number was W5233. One of the highlights in my service in Halifax was during the Bedford Basin explosion on July 19th in 1945. A barge blew up at the naval magazine jetty. All the ships pulled out as quickly as possible from the harbour. I was a signalwoman, and on duty in the dockyard. At the time of the explosion... there was a woman that had been in the previous explosion in Halifax, and she just went beserk. We were relieved of our duty in the dockyard in the office, and my partner and I went down to the canteen and served the people who were fighting the fires as they came in for relief. They would come into the canteen for refreshments. We were on duty there for about twenty hours. During the V-E Day celebrations, or should I say "fracas," I was on duty at that time relieving someone who was on duty downtown in the signals office on top of the post office. We had to go through this rioting that was going on that had started at the upper level, and the crowd slowly made their way down the hill down to Barrington. They didn't leave a store window unbroken. It was scary. And we were ordered when we got to the signal office downtown - we were told not to leave until the shore patrol picked us up because they didn't think it would be safe for us.