Nestled in a busy engine room about 60 feet below the waterline of a 320-foot-long, River-class destroyer, cruising the perilous waters of the North Atlantic during the Second World War, Steveston’s Walter Taylor said he never really had time to be afraid.
Taylor, 89, was a stoker. His task was to tend to his vessel’s massive boilers that supplied steam for the turbines.
“I never thought too much about what went on topside,” said Taylor, this year’s honoured veteran for the Remembrance Day service in Richmond. “I knew there were dangers while we patrolled the waters as part of a convoy, looking for submarines. But I never thought about us being sunk. It was more like the opposite — we’d drop a bunch of depth charges and let someone else worry about it.”
Taylor was just 17 when he left the family farm in Nelson and joined the Royal Canadian Navy, serving aboard three different destroyers — Iroquois, St. Laurent and Ottawa — during his three-year stint which involved about nine crossings of the North Atlantic, protecting cargo ships ferrying supplies for the war effort.
“I guess I was looking for an adventure,” Taylor said, when asked why he decided to join up.
“Too young and fearless to know better, more like,” added his wife of 68 years, Jean.
Taylor’s father joined the army and served in the First World War, then tried to sign up for the Second World War, but was told he was too old for active service.
“They told him to go home,” Taylor said with a broad smile. “I had great respect for my father. He taught me a lot.”
That was another reason why a young Taylor chose to serve. It’s something he is proud to look back on and to share memories with his sons and grandchildren each Nov. 11.
“Being at the Armistice Day service — that’s what I was used to calling it — sitting there with my family makes me feel that much closer to them,” he said. “I know the efforts I made during the war were for them, and it’s nice that they are thinking of the sacrifices other people made, too.
“A lot of other people didn’t make it, and I sometimes wonder why I did.”
Much of the time Taylor was aboard a destroyer, he felt separated from the action from up top, although he does recall on the odd occasion where he’d be on the deck and able to see ships in his convoy several miles away — almost specks on the horizon.
“You’d see them and then sometimes they were gone,” he said. “And when a ship alongside you goes down, it really gets your attention that this was a very dangerous place to be.”
Apart from helping make sure the ship had power on demand, Taylor remembers the muster station he had to man during emergencies.
He pointed to one of the black and white photographs on his den wall where all three destroyers are featured, indicating the spot just below the forward, main gun.
“That was my place. I had to man a rope that pulled up the shells for the gun from down below,” he said. “They (shells) must have been a few feet tall. And when they were fired, they made a tremendous noise.
“That’s why I wear these now,” he added, putting a finger to one of his ears and his hearing aid. “Still, I never remember being bored, ever. There was always plenty to do.”
After the war, Taylor returned home and attended UBC for two years before going back to the Kootenays and joining West Kootenay Power and Light, where he worked for close to 45 years, running power control systems.
He met Jean shortly after being demobbed when her brother, a Canadian sailor, as well, introduced them. And together, they raised four sons.
“It’s been an enjoyable life,” said Taylor, who along with Jean moved into the Maple Residence about 18 months ago. “I’ve done a lot and there’s a lot to be proud of.”
On Remembrance Day, he will be part of the dignitaries on the reviewing stand and will salute those marching past, then later lay a wreath at the cenotaph.
“It will be, as always, an important time to show respect,” he said.
