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This First Person column is written by CBC journalist Richard Woodbury, who lives in Halifax. For more information about CBC’s First Person stories, please see the FAQ.
My paternal grandfather died more than a decade before I was born, meaning I never got to meet him.
So, imagine my shock when the first time I heard his voice was through a transcript in which his words described what was likely the worst day of his life.
On March 26, 1941, Able Seaman Eric Arthur Woodbury was one of 41 people aboard HMCS Otter, a vessel that searched for German submarines and sea mines just beyond the nets in Halifax harbour during the Second World War. The nets were designed to keep enemy subs from getting inside the harbour.
On that day, more than three years before D-Day, the 41 Canadians and Brits were forced to abandon ship after a fire broke out on the Otter.
My grandfather was one of the lucky ones, as 19 people died.
Within my family, my grandfather’s experience on that day was a mystery of sorts. He didn’t appear to have told others about it in detail.
I remember my father telling me as a child that my grandfather’s ship was torpedoed during the war and he spent several hours in the water clinging to wreckage before being rescued. He also received a commendation for trying to save others.
The image of hanging on to debris for hours in the ocean is one that’s been seared into my head since I heard it.
The story a cousin of mine heard was that our grandfather held someone above water for many hours, but eventually had to let him go due to fatigue.
I’ve written a couple dozen stories regarding Nova Scotian and Canadian military history, focusing mostly on the world wars, often telling little-known stories of the airmen, seamen and soldiers who served.
But when it came to my grandfather, I knew next to nothing.
That all changed with the approach of the 85th anniversary of the Otter’s ordeal, when I decided to do a story about the ship.
I combed newspaper accounts of the day and interviewed journalist Stephen Kimber, who wrote the book Sailors, Slackers and Blind Pigs: Halifax at War. He called the ship’s ordeal “a dramatic tale of tension and heroics.”
Researching the story, I didn’t come across much information relating to my grandfather — mostly a photo that showed the Otter’s survivors leaving the hospital.
Unsatisfied, I thought about how I could learn more. I figured Library and Archives Canada might have some documentation and ordered two sets of documents and filed a freedom of information request.
When I wrote the original story, I didn’t realize that two days after the ship’s sinking, a board of inquiry began to determine what happened on the Otter, interviewing survivors and others with pertinent information.
The first batch of documentation I received had 217 pages and included an inquiry transcript.
The grandfather I never knew suddenly came to life, both through his words and those of his fellow seamen.
Because the seas were rough on March 26, 1941, no traditional breakfast was held on the Otter. Instead, the crew ate oranges and “bully beef,” a historical term for canned corned beef.
For my grandfather, his day began at 8 a.m. AT when he went on watch to act as a lookout person.
Between 8:41 and 8:45 a.m., a fire broke out in the ship’s engine room.
“Unfortunately the engine room personnel on watch when the fire broke out were subsequently drowned or died of exposure and shock,” an inquiry report notes. “For this reason the exact origin or cause of the starting of the fire cannot be ascertained definitively.”
My grandfather, who was in the wheelhouse, was sent to the engine room to check on the fire.
There, different seamen were using fire extinguishers to attempt to put out the intense fire.
My grandfather went to get a hose, which he and another seaman rigged up.
“I turned it on but there was no water,” my grandfather told the inquiry.
That’s because an electrical failure prevented the saltwater firefighting system from working.
By 8:50 a.m., the flames were coming through the ship’s upper deck.
Abandon ship
At 8:55 a.m., the crew was ordered to abandon ship, a mere 10 minutes after the fire was discovered.
Coincidentally, the day before this tragedy, the crew had practised a drill for abandoning ship.
My grandfather went below to get his lifebelt and then went back up on deck.
Forty people on board — excluding the captain — were then placed in two lifeboats and a life-raft (known as a Carley float) in gale-force winds, meaning winds between 62 and 74 km/h. It was March and the water was frigid, with waves as high as five metres.
Lifeboat No. 1
My grandfather was placed on the starboard lifeboat, which encountered trouble immediately.
“The boat hit the side of the ship three or four times awfully hard when she was being lowered,” he told the inquiry.
When the lifeboat reached the water, it was leaking. My grandfather tried in vain to remove water from it by using his sea boot, meaning one of his feet was presumably exposed to the freezing water.
Luckily, a Polish vessel, the SS Wisla — whose country of origin was not referenced in the media coverage of the day — was sailing past. It spotted the crew and approached to help rescue them. By then, it was 9:30 a.m. and the crew tossed a rope to the people in my grandfather’s lifeboat, but a rogue wave overturned it, leading to many people drowning.
After frantic efforts, some of the survivors were able to turn the lifeboat back over and get into it, while others clung to it from the water.
The Wisla crew even lowered two lifeboats into the water, but the strong winds and waves smashed them against the side of the freighter, destroying them.
At some point, my grandfather swam to the Wisla’s sea ladder.
“I could not climb up because my hands were so numb and the second mate came down and put a rope around me and I was hauled on board and taken below,” he told the inquiry.
The second mate my grandfather referenced was likely Polish seaman, Pawel Stelmaszyk, who was named in other documents I obtained. At great risk to his life, he tied up sailors one by one, living and dead, to be hauled aboard.
Stelmaszyk broke several ribs during his rescues that day and was hospitalized for more than a month.
The original portion of my grandfather’s testimony runs four pages, but he was later called back for more questioning and asked about his efforts to help another man, John Graham, who wasn’t wearing a lifebelt.
“I had been assisting Graham but when the lifeboat capsized a crutch [a device that holds an oar in place] caught in the strap of my life belt and to free it I had to let go of Graham and when I tried to look for him again he had disappeared,” my grandfather told the inquiry.
Five of the 16 people aboard Lifeboat No. 1 survived.
Life-raft
The 12 people on the life-raft huddled together as they fought to keep from being washed overboard. Standing in water up to their waists, they sang and shouted in a vain effort to stay warm.
“When the men, one by one, started to give in from exhaustion others tried to keep their heads above the water,” a survivor told the Halifax Herald in a press account published in the days following the incident.
The survivors were brought to safety by a British submarine, HMS Talisman — referred to as simply “another war vessel” in some media coverage of the day.
This rescue effort was believed to have started at 10 a.m., but the inquiry was not definitive.
Only four people from the life-raft survived.
Lifeboat No. 2
The Wisla at 10:45 a.m. turned its attention to a second lifeboat, which had 13 people in it, including the ship’s captain. He had initially stayed aboard the Otter while the rest of the crew abandoned ship, but when he left the ship he was placed in this lifeboat.
The occupants of the second lifeboat all survived and climbed aboard the Wisla with little help.
The Wisla’s captain later said the final rescue was finished around 11:20 a.m., but the inquiry’s findings questioned whether that time was accurate.
Ernest Russell
One of the people who survived Lifeboat No. 1 alongside my grandfather was Ernest Russell, a probationary steward. He told the inquiry that he was taken to the galley of the Wisla, where his clothes were removed and dried. He was covered with blankets in a cabin. After being given some fried eggs, whisky and cigarettes, Russell felt better and decided to go outside.
There, he spotted two of the Otter’s crew members, L.P. Thibodeau and N.G. Woods, lying on the deck while two people tried to revive them.
“Able Seaman Woodbury was working on Thibodeau and the galley boy was working on Woods,” Russell told the inquiry. “So I told Woodbury to stop for a few minutes and I would relieve him and work for a while on Thibodeau.
“After working over him for about ten minutes I realized he was dead as he was stiffening. Then I went over to have a look at Woods and saw that he was dead too.”
Thibodeau and Woods were placed side by side and covered with a blanket.
For their efforts in the ordeal, six people were recommended for medals, while commendations were recommended for three people, one of whom was Eric Arthur Woodbury.
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