by Roy Allen David Wilson was born in Ayr in Scotland, and as with so many young men he joined the British Royal Navy to serve King and Country during the Great War. At Scapa Flow, in 1918, he was on hand for the scuttling of the once mighty German fleet. Upon discharge from the Royal Navy in 1931, he immigrated to Canada to join his family, where he became a well-known footballer. In 1939, at the breakout of the Second World War David Wilson, a Royal Navy veteran, volunteered for the Royal Canadian Navy. He was turned down; being told that there was no place for him in the RCN at that time. So it was then that he, along with his brother-in-law, joined the army; specifically the Royal Regiment of Canada, out of Toronto. Some time later, while on leave and attending a hockey game at Maple Leaf Gardens, he lost his wallet, which contained, among other things, his discharge papers from the Royal Navy. An honest citizen dropped the wallet in a mailbox and it found its way to Ottawa, where his RN discharge papers, which detailed his many years of naval experience, caught the eye of the Royal Canadian Navy. The same navy that had once told him that they had no need of his services was now determined to add this experienced veteran to their ranks. Private Wilson of the Royal Regiment quickly became Petty Officer Wilson, RCN, and was assigned to corvette duty with HMCS Oakville, which had recently been commissioned. The story of how his lost wallet led to his "rescue" from the army was quite popular amongst naval personnel, and won him the title of "Luckiest Man in the Navy" for a time. (David Wilson's brother-in-law, Private Norman Graham, would remain with the Royal Regiment of Canada. On August 19th, 1942, he was badly wounded in the raid on the French port town of Dieppe. He would spend the next 32 months as a prisoner of war.) On the night of August 28th, 1942, the Oakville was escorting a convoy of fuel tanker ships in the Caribbean Sea, when a United States Navy plane-patrolling overhead spotted a German u-boat. The plane immediately dropped a pattern of depth bombs and a signal flare to mark the submarine's position. Oakville steamed hard towards the flare; The ASDIC operator confirmed contact with the sub, and when they were directly overhead, the Oakville released a salvo of five depth charges. Moments later, and mere hundreds of feet away, the damaged u-boat surfaced. The crew of the Oakville raked the submarine with fire from their four-inch gun and the Captain gave the order to ram. Oakville made three successful ramming passes before the Captain ordered a two-man party to board the now badly battered u-boat. They were looking for intelligence; maps, documents, or the greatest prize of all, a German "enigma” decoding machine. But the sub was going down - fast. The boarding party soon found itself empty handed, swimming on the surface along with the surviving u-boat crew. |
The threat of the u-boat was gone, but HMCS Oakville was not out of danger. The ramming action which had dealt such a severe blow to the enemy sub had also torn away large portions of her own hull. Oakville was taking on water. Many sections of the ship were flooding badly, including the engine room, and therein lay the greatest danger. If the cool ocean water were to come into contact with the steam pressurized boilers, which powered the ship, the resulting explosion would be catastrophic. As Chief Stoker, Petty Officer David Wilson knew this. After he had led his five-man crew safely up to the deck, he went back down below. The engine room was pitch black, and badly flooded, but as he swam, he managed to navigate by feel until he reached the boilers. He vented them all, and thereby averted disaster. In the following hour and days, the crew of the corvette HMCS Oakville worked tirelessly to keep their ship afloat. They shored up bulkheads, pumped water from the below decks, worked to restore power, and tended to the wounded German submariners. Though their ship was badly damaged, the crew had come out of it unscathed. They managed to make it to the American Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where they received temporary repairs. They then sailed for Halifax and home. For the sinking of U-94, four men of the Oakville's crew were decorated and six received mentions in dispatches. Among those decorated was Petty Officer David Wilson, who, for his quick thinking and vital venting of the engine room boilers, was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. Both David Wilson, my wife's uncle, and Norman Graham, my wife's father, would survive the war. It has been 60 years since the end of the Second World War, and 2005 has been declared the Year of the Veteran. The importance of the story of HMCS Oakville is that it serves to remind us of character of the men and women who served our nation through six years of war. They loved life, and desired only to live in peace and freedom. Yet they were willing to risk all that they cherished so dearly so that others might share in it. Without their courage, strength of will, and sacrifice, we would not enjoy the life that today we take for granted. They called David Wilson the "Luckiest Man in the Navy", but in truth it is we who are the lucky ones. To all of the brave men and women who have sacrificed so much for us…... 
We Thank You. |