Hallowed Ground

HMCS Prevost ‘Hallowed Ground’

By SLt David Lewis

“Is there a stone for HMCS Valleyfield?”

The voice startled me. I was looking down the hill at the new memorial and hadn’t seen the elderly gentleman approach. The Legion blazer he wore draped his fragile frame. From our vantage point, we could see the backs of the 24 blue granite stones dedicated to Royal Canadian Navy ships lost in
the Battle of the Atlantic.

I indicated which stone was the HMCS Valleyfield memorial, and assisted him down the grassy slope. He carefully examined the stone. Below the engraved image, it reads, “HMCS Valleyfield (K329) 7 May 1944”. After a few pensive moments, he reached out and gently touched the stone.

“The date is right,” he said. “It’s the day my brother died.”

The Battle of the Atlantic Memorial was dedicated May 2 at HMCS Prevost in London, Ont. It consists of a series of quarter-tonne stones, each engraved with an individual ship’s name, which form a timeline along a 200-metre hillside. They are placed according to the date when the ships were lost at sea. There are 25 stones in total; one of them is dedicated to lost Merchant Navy ships.

The emotional effects of this memorial were evident even before the stones were placed on their permanent mounts. While the hillside was being prepared, the stones rested on wooden pallets on the drill deck at HMCS Prevost. Unannounced, there would be teary-eyed people searching out individual stones.

One such request was for the HMCS Regina stone. In a shaky voice, a man recounted his story. During the war, he was a young able seaman in HMCS Regina. Because of dental issues, he left the ship in Halifax with orders to rejoin the ship’s company a few days later in St. John’s. When he arrived in St. John’s, he learned that the ship had departed earlier than expected. A short time later, Regina was torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-667.

With difficulty, the man leaned over far enough to gently touch the stone, paying his respects to those shipmates.

The stories continued.

Two elderly sisters had a granddaughter drive them to the dedication so they could touch the HMCS Athabaskan stone in memory of the 17-year-old brother they lost in 1944.

HMCS Louisburg’s CO, Lieutenant-CommanderWilliam Franklin Campbell, was one of many lost when the ship was torpedoed February 6, 1943. His grandson,Commander Frank Campbell, flew from Bahrain to dedicate and touch the Louisburg stone.

The local veteran who was tossed into the oily sea when HMCS Weyburn was hit in 1943 was thrilled to learn about the memorial. He died a week before its dedication.He never touched the stone, but the stone touched him.

During the dedication ceremony, the words of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address came to mind:
“...we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground.The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract.”

I’m not sure what constitutes “hallowed ground”. I do know that these stones represent thousands of
young Canadians. I do know that this grassy hillside at HMCS Prevost has been changed forever.