My father, William Lundrigan, loved the ocean as much as anyone could without having fins or gills. As a young boy living a stone's throw from the Atlantic Ocean in Newfoundland, Canada, he spent much time on or around the ocean. In January of 1940, at the tender age of eighteen, having heard the stories of a war raging a world away from his tiny community of Upper Island Cove, he enlisted for service with the British Royal Navy and soon found himself sailing towards Europe, disaster, triumph and the woman who would become his wife and soul mate. In his six years of active duty he sailed all over Europe, North Africa and along the coasts of Canada and the U.S. and as far north as Spitsbergen, Norway, the Land of the Midnight Sun. From Malta in the Mediterranean to Murmansk, Russia, he changed ships many times depending on the circumstances of the time and had the opportunity to meet and serve with many people. He also met my mother, Edith England, while spending some time on shore leave in England. Eventually, they married and had two of their six children while living there, before setting sail to come back to Newfoundland after the war was over, but that's another story for another time. On November 3, 1940, while my father was serving aboard the H.M.S. Laurentic somewhere in the Denmark Strait, the German submarine, U-99, torpedoed and sank the Laurentic along with two other allied ships, the H.M.S. Patroclus and the S.S. Casanare. It took several torpedoes to take the Laurentic down and during that time the orders were given to abandon ship which meant everyone needed to get to their assigned life rafts. When my father got to where he was supposed to be, his life raft was gone and so he had nowhere to go. In the dark of the night with the ship listed to one side to such a degree that the water was about to come over the side, he frantically searched for and found a life jacket, one that he had to manually inflate. You see, my father couldn't swim. By this time the water was flooding over the side so, looking down into the darkness, he closed his eyes and jumped. After some time in the freezing waters, a life raft with his comrades came along and they pulled him in. The Germans continued to hunt for survivors and many were shot and killed as they tried to scramble to safety one way or another. Eventually, after many terrifying hours, the U-boat left and the survivors were left to drift aimlessly as their ship sank below the frigid waters to its final resting place. Bouncing on the unforgiving sea, the life raft was severely overcrowded and, as a result, submerged in the icy waters so that they were all up to their waists in water for ten hours or so until the next morning when rescuers came to their aid. He said many years later that, because of the cold water, he did not have the strength to climb out of the life raft and had to be lifted out. From there he was taken to the engine room with some of the others where he could thaw out. From there it was on to a hospital in Scotland for two weeks, after which he got his medical clearance and given a kit-bag and hammock and other supplies and assigned another ship. Many of his comrades, some of which were clinging to the sides of life rafts, became numb with the cold and drifted off into the night, never to be seen again. I could probably write for days about his participation in the war and the places he has been and about my mother and what her family went through, especially that of her brother Sid who was taken as a POW by the Japanese where he died from malnutrition and disease while being used as slave labour building the bridge on the River Kwai; the Death Railway as it was also called. That, too, is another story. Indeed, the memories of the stories of sacrifice, death and triumph have helped me become who I am today. I am so very proud and thankful for his and their efforts, without which the world would, no doubt, be a very different place right now. I am writing this as a tribute to not only their efforts at such a pivotal time in the world's history, but also, to stress how much lives are altered post-war. He would often find himself unable to finish a story about his war experiences and found himself lost in the moments; the present moment and the war moment. I sometimes think he hovered between moments here and there, experiencing the now; in one moment and then lost in the past moment that was often too difficult to express. The effects of war on anyone is profoundly disturbing, as I have read and as I have seen through living with my parents throughout my childhood and adolescence. The many stories have helped to mould me and are an integral part of who I am. There is a very human cost that we sometimes overlook. My mother continues to enjoy a quiet peaceful life in her own apartment and is quite independent at the age of 92. My father passed away in November of 2006 and is dearly missed each and every day. I wrote the following poem not just as a tribute to my father and all the people who have suffered and lost throughout that war and others, but, also, simply because remembering the stories that he told is a way of remembering him. My father left here a few years ago, but sometimes, especially when I am near the ocean or the grassy meadows where he walked and picked berries, I feel his presence. I don't just remember him in those moments, I feel him; there is a difference. The Sinking of the H.M.S. Laurentic-A Very Human Cost I sat beside the ocean and listened to the music That the waves and the rocks made together. The easiness of the melody lulled me into a state of serenity And there I gazed off Far I looked across the blue expanse To where the ocean became the sky. Just for a while I sat and stared into the firmament. Solitude wrapped me in its warm embrace As I journeyed with my mind back in time To events my eyes have never seen. Above the dark North Atlantic I found myself Looking down from my safe place, Trying to imagine what it was like For you and your comrades As cold and torturous Nazi steel Made its way to the surface And injected its death into the cause of liberty. Into her hull, crippling blows Heralded the end of the H.M.S. Laurentic. Time slowed to a standstill; It knew no haste in your peril. Smoke, screams and fire Created a private hell on water As they abandoned their fortress. As she lay wounded and dying, Surrendering to her fate, Her children leave her at last; Her innards spilling out, Disemboweled and bleeding into the night. Ballast barrels bobbed like giant corks Along the surface of a watery battlefield and grave That would become her final resting place. Silent-Otto tallied up the tonnage As the sailors rowed away; some of them, Those who were still alive, those who would survive To relive this night again and again. As the frigid Atlantic makes numb your very bones And, as your innocence dies, your tormentors relentlessly Hunt for easy prey among the barrels and the bodies. Stubbornly, a mighty ship slips between the icy waves As her children shriek to their mothers And to their God to have this cup taken from them, Wondering why their time had come so soon. I looked beyond the decades today, Into the past, and I see you there A boy of nineteen, In that overcrowded life-raft, Half submerged in the unforgiving sea, Bouncing between life and death, Touching the face of insanity, As your friends in that freezing hell drifted away Silently into the night, never to return; Never to celebrate the coming victories As good triumphed over evil. Dad, I took some time today To listen for your voice. It came through in tranquility, It came through in peace I heard it in the music of the ocean And in the silence. The birds around me Chirped their liberty song And fluttered from tree to tree As the winds of contentment Gathered around me, And I felt safe.   Submitted By: Boyd Lundrigan