Remembering the Battle of the Atlantic.
Cape Breton Second World War veteran to celebrate 75th anniversary of the end of long-running conflict at home
NORTH SYDNEY, N.S. — Second World War veteran Ray Mackay is taking the coronavirus pandemic in stride.
After all, the 97-year-old Westmount resident, who hailed from Grove’s Point when he joined the Canadian navy in 1942, spent the war years escorting supply convoys across the Atlantic Ocean.
He knows, as the old British idiom goes, that worse things happen at sea.
“This COVID thing is probably the worst situation I’ve seen since the war — of course, the Spanish Flu of 1918 was bad but that was a bit before my time,” said Mackay, who is looking forward to celebrating his 70th wedding anniversary with wife Jean on June 1.
“We’re stuck at home, but we’re getting along fine — we have a granddaughter that makes sure we have what we need and that we’re not starving.”
Mackay’s attitude is not surprising given his time in the navy, much of it spent aboard the HMCS Magog as a wireless operator.
“We had something at that time called HFDF, it’s a Highfrequency Direction Finder, and when the submarines would send their messages back to Germany we could hone in on them. That was important because those German subs would travel in wolfpacks and they would congregate and wait to surprise ships that they could pick off,” he said.
“We were Navy, so we were pretty well off — it was the poor people in the merchant ships that I felt for because they didn’t have much protection. They might have had one gun on each merchant ship, while we had depth charges, Hedgehogs (anti-submarine forwardfiring
mortars) and twin guns forward and one 12-pounder on the quarterdeck rear, so we were pretty well protected. And, our vessel was fast.”
If it weren’t for the coronavirus, Mackay would be spending Sunday in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the end of the Battle of the Atlantic, which is considered
the longest continuous military campaign of the Second World War. The ongoing sea conflict cost the lives of more than 72,000 Allied sailors and merchant seamen, while estimates put the number of German Uboat sailor deaths at more than 30,000.
But, with group gatherings now prohibited, there will be no parade and ceremony to mark the battle’s 75th anniversary.
“It’s too bad — it deserves to be recognized because we lost so many people,” said Mackay, who is believed to be one of six surviving local veterans of the Battle of the Atlantic.
David Keeping, of the Cape Breton Naval Veterans Association, said it’s important to acknowledge the special anniversary.
“We have to do something even if it is just a small ceremony because we can’t just forget about it,” said Keeping, who serves as the master-atarms at commemorative events honouring Canadian veterans.
On Sunday morning, Keeping and two others, a padre and a trumpet player will meet on the Sydney waterfront. The abbreviated ceremony will be held by the Merchant Mariner monument on the boardwalk.
This year’s Battle of the Atlantic parade was to have been held in North Sydney and, according to Keeping, was to have been one of the largest ceremonies in years. The 2019 parade was in Sydney, while the 2018 event was held in New Waterford.