197 amusement of onlookers. After numerous rounds of the deck, the deranged cook finally exhausted himself and was subdued. Dad also spoke of the stormy weather in the North Atlantic. He mentioned a time when one of his ships found herself in trouble in the midst of a hurricane. Dad was on the bridge as a massive wave rolled the ship on its side, the bridge deck nearly ninety degrees to the boiling ocean below. Those on the bridge hung on for dear life until the ship triumphantly righted herself, but the scare unnerved even the most seasoned of her officers. While Dad was busy on convoy duty, my mother, Betty Crowdy, also joined the war effort. Mum was a graduate of McGill University, holding a Bachelor of Science degree in bacteriology. She had worked in hospital labs in Montreal before enlisting in the Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service (WRCNS) in October 1943. The WRCNS was founded on 31 July 1942 as the navy’s answer to the Canadian Women’s Army Corps and the Royal Canadian Air Force Women’s Division. It was modelled after the British Royal Women’s Navy Service (WRNS), members of which were informally known as Wrens. British Wrens initially served in leadership roles in the Canadian service, but a Canadian director, Commander Adelaide Sinclair (1900-82), was appointed 18 September 1943, just a month before my mother enlisted. Wrens served in a variety of administrative and trades positions, my mother working officially as a Lab Technician in Halifax and in St. John’s, Newfoundland, then still a separate dominion from Canada. Around 500 WRCNS members were stationed in St. John’s at HMCS Avalon during the war. A total of 6,783 women served in the WRCNS before it was disbanded in 1946. Dad on watch on the bridge
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