he also served...a short story by george pratt Submitted by Jeffery Hawke, Moose Jaw
“ Our kids are being homeschooled and we are learning about the history of our family WW2 and German sub u-190.We are hop-
ing to share the story with elderly people at homes to help with public speaking and to share this cool story about the unconditional
surrender of German sub u-190. The story is a story about my grandpa Jim [Hawke] who passed away October 2019.
Worming into my seat, I was astonished to recognize the singer—a local ‘go-to’ guy known for his genius with marine mechanical problems. I had visited him several times in his little shop near Madeira Park. Totally out of context, here he was, singing in Latin, the Panis Angelicus, the famous St. Thomas Aquinas hymn. This man was born James Edgar Hawke, at Dauphin, Manitoba, an incredible eighty-eight years before— and he had a story to tell.
HE ALSO SERVED . . .
. . . a short story by George Pratt Arriving late at the Suncoast Singers fall concert one evening in 2008, I was greeted by the mellow bass voice of a male soloist emanating from the auditorium. It was far from the black gold of Robert Merril
Just after the outbreak of WW2, Jim’s innate understanding of machinery landed him a job as a powerhouse engineer for Dominion Electric, which later became Saskatchewan Power. But as the war entered its darkest days, particularly on the North Atlantic, where Canadian convoys were being decimated by wolf packs of German submarines, his thoughts turned toward serving his country. So it was that in June of 1942, Jim left his home in Winnipegosis and trekked to Winnipeg to join the Royal Canadian Navy. The very same month, submarine U-190 was launched at Bremen, Germ
“I think it is important to remember how we got here.”
engines. It was candy for Jim Hawke. He remained aboard for a stint of patrol work off Gaspé but before long, his civilian power station experience was recognized and it got him pulled off sea duty to transfer to St. John’s Newfoundland, where an engineer was needed to maintain the dockyard naval base. A dashing naval career in a warship at sea was effectively grounded on the rocks. Resignedly, he accepted his lot, perhaps thinking of the words of the great poet, Milton ‘They also serve who only stand and wait.’ While Jim was marking time at the dockyard, the U-190 was also having a somewhat lacklustre career. By 1945, with the war nearing its end, she had managed to sink only one allied ship, a relatively barren record for the Kriegsmarine. However, with cessation of hostilities imminent, she did up her score by torpedoeing HMCS Esquimalt just off Halifax Harbor, a very sad day for the Canadian Navy. A week later, her orders came to surrender to the Allied Forces and after jettisoning her munitions, U-190 was summarily boarded and escorted in to Bay Bulls, a harbor a few miles west of St. John’s. St. John’s was in a frenzy of celebration with a riot of signals flying off to the fleet to trigger the winding down process from six years of war. Immediately the U-190 arrived in Bay Bulls, new orders came for Jim. They were simple: Head out to Bay Bulls and live aboard the German submarine U-190 while you get it up and running, cleaned and prepared for sea. He could not have been more startled if they had drafted him to Antarctica. He did not know that the Admiralty had already made plans that the U-190 should go on a tour up the St. Lawrence river to be shown off to a war-weary population as a war prize.
any, destined to join the wolf packs making life hell for the convoys in the North Atlantic.
l but it was
rich and altogether pleasant:
Because of his mechanical experience, the RCN immediately sent Jim to Halifax for training in shipborne engineering. His first assignment upon graduation was to head for the wartime shipyard at Penetang, Ontario, to join the crew of newly-built Fairmile 051, a small vessel used for coastal patrol submarine hunting. His particular duty was very agreeable—the care and keeping of the Fairmile’s two 640-HP Holscott
“Panus angelicus, Fit panis hominum; Dat panis coelicus . . . the angelic bread becomes the bread of men . . . “
The Admiralty had cobbled together what was to become the new ship’s company for the U-190—a captain and executive officer and a handful of ratings trained in the technical skills they judged would be required to operate a submarine. Thus, along with several other engineer mechanics, Jim arrived at Bay Bulls and with some trepidation, all headed up the gangway to go aboard. None among them had ever been aboard any submarine, never mind a German one. The vessel was ghostly quiet as they clambered uncertainly below decks and began floundering around in the dark to see what a submarine was all about. Jim’s orders were to get the engines up and running and there was nothing for it but to get started. But start where? In time, the electrical crew got some light on the subject, to reveal a bewildering jungle of valves and gauges and control handles that were incomprehensibly tagged in German; it may as well have been Swahili.
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