NAVY HISTORY - SAILORS

One Sailor

One Sailor


The Pacific Coast of Canada has an interesting, expansive, and interconnected story to tell. It is through the records of one sailor that this participation and support in the Second World War unfolds in all its components.

John Scott was born in Brandon Manitoba on December 24th, 1923 and grew up with stories of the First World War from his Uncle Bill who had fought at Vimy Ridge with the 16th Battalion and then matured during the desperate years of the great depression, In 1939 as a teenager he left home and travelled to Victoria British Columbia, where he was taken in by his brother older Ed Scott who helped secure a job for him at the Yarrow Shipyards in Esquimalt.

While working at the shipyard John (known as Jack) was exposed to the news of the war in the Atlantic, the growing tensions on the West Coast with Japan and the overall frantic pace of the mobilization of Canada for war.

On March 20, 1942, a few months after the Pearl Harbor attack, at 18 years of age, Jack came home to his brothers’ home and announced that he had enlisted in the Navy that day after his shift at Yarrow. He was inducted at Naden and began his training which was the starting point which saw Jack serve in the Atlantic, Caribbean, the Mediterranean, participate in D-Day, fight along the coasts of France, Belgium and the Netherlands and return to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia on RCN vessels while preparing to return to Esquimalt for service in the Pacific.

These are the profile, records, documents, photographs, and words – One Sailor who started the war at Naden, served throughout several theaters, and ended at Naden British Columbia.