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This crossing was filled with sickness and fear
Ronald
(Bruce) Atkinson
As an eighteen-year-old army private, I arrived at the C.N.R.
Station in Halifax, from Camp Borden, Ontario early one
morning in October 1943. I was proud to join the military
personnel aboard that train who marched from the train
station to Pier 21 nearby. Over 700 enlisted men and women
boarded the "Mauritania" bound for Liverpool, England, as
reinforcements in the war against Hitler's Germany. I
returned home in December 1945 in the company of 75 officers
and men. We left Liverpool on a converted ore carrier on the
12th. The ship had mechanical trouble this side of Ireland
and had to return to Greenock, Scotland for repairs. After a
terrible storm that followed us for the whole crossing, we
finally made port. This crossing was filled with sickness
and fear, but once we saw the warm and caring people inside
Pier21, the atmosphere changed.
The sights and sounds we encountered entering Halifax
Harbour in the early morning on the 27th and landing at Pier
21, are still vivid. Pier 21 was a large warehouse with
birds flying overhead in the rafters. It was a very noisy
scene. We were not the only ship to arrive. Languages, other
than English, were being spoken and I flashed back to
streets in Europe. We were still wearing out Army uniforms,
with great coats and full gear including our rifles. Smells
of mould, musk and body odours filled our nostrils but above
the smells of the accumulated filth and dirt came smells of
coffee. The local people were doing all they could to
accommodate everyone. They had trays of egg and peanut
butter sandwiches which said to us, "We're home!" They had
wonderful cookies, cookies by the dozens - molasses, sugar,
and date. Sometime you couldn't hear your officer giving
orders, but this didn't matter as we knew very soon we would
be boarding the Canadian National Railway's trains headed
for home. We were given our tickets. I was the only one to
get off at Moncton, New Brunswick. The others travelled on
to the provinces further west. As we arrived at Pier 21, my
mind wandered back a couple of years earlier to when two of
my brothers would have entered this building ahead of me.
One brother was in the Air Force and one was in the Army. My
eldest brother, in the Air Force, flew out of Shearwater and
on to Ottawa. He was a photographer up and down the East
Coast during the war. My brother ahead of me was Navy,
patrolling the waters of the East Coast and escorting ships
from Halifax to Newfoundland. Eldon was in the Air Force and
was a photographer. Myron was also Air Force and was sent to
England. Evans was in the Army and served in England, North
Africa, Italy and Sicily, and the Netherlands and Germany. I
was in Holland on V.E. Day after I spent three months in the
hospital in Belgium because I had lost the use of a leg due
to nerve damage from an emergency operation for a ruptured
appendix in a military hospital in Ontario. From 1939 to
1943, five sons of Douglas H. and Gladys Atkinson of Moncton,
N.B. joined the three services, fighting to keep Canada
free. All five came home to work in Canada, the rest of
their lives. Four are now deceased. I'm the fifth, and my
name is Ronald "Bruce" Atkinson, a resident of Moncton, N.B.
in the forties, now a long-time resident of Halifax, N.S.
Ronald (Bruce) Atkinson
Story courtesy of www.Pier21.ca – National historic site,
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