Gordon Brown

(Gordon Brown's name is not on the Norway Honour Roll, but is on Danforth Tech's Roll.)

Gordon Brown's father Percy John Brown was born May 16, 1885 in Stapenhill, Staffordshire, England. It is located 30 miles northwest of Birmingham. He was the son of a cooper. He arrived in Toronto on June 2, 1912 and promptly found employment with the city. On September 5, 1914 he married Mary Elizabeth Freeman who had also emigrated from England to Canada in 1912. Mary's father was a mechanic and she was a year younger than Percy.

Percy enlisted in the Canadian Army in March 1916 and trained in Canada. The couple welcomed their first son Percy John Jr in the fall of 1916 and the next year a daughter, Kathleen Nora was born.

Percy Sr was shipped to England in March 1918 and joined the 38th Battalion in France the next month. He was a reinforcement after the battle for Hill 70 at Vimy Ridge. The battalion fought that summer at Amiens and in September they were in Cambrai. It was a vicious battle. On September 26 the battalion had 570 men. By the 30th, the battalion was down to 96. The previous day all the officers and NCOs were killed or wounded as they tried to cross the Douai-Cambrai Road. Percy Sr was awarded the Military Medal for bravery.

He returned to Canada in June 1919 and was demobilized the next month. Mary and the two children had been living with Mary's widowed mother on College Street but had moved three times while Percy Sr was away. The family moved into an apartment in the building that was at 508 Kingston Road and Percy Sr returned to his job with the city. He worked for the roads department and in the city stables.

Another daughter, Isabel, was born around 1922 and Gordon arrived on June 2, 1925. The family continued to move around frequently, living at 195 Willow Avenue in the late 1920s. By 1930, when Gordon was starting school at Norway, they settled at 1995 Gerrard Street East, two doors west of Devon Road. The Browns remained there for ten years. When Gordon graduated from Norway, he followed Percy Jr to Danforth Tech in 1938 for the general technical course where he learned about electricity, drafting and general machine shop practices. In high school, Gordon liked hockey, volleyball and bowling, but preferred to be a spectator. He enjoyed reading, collecting stamps and he played the saxophone.

Percy Sr died in 1941 and Gordon had to quit school in Grade 10 to help support the family. They had moved to 38 Gough Avenue near Pape and Danforth. Percy Jr joined the army, serving with The Hastings and Prince Edward regiment in Italy. Gordon found a job at the Robert Simpson department store doing general clerical work like typing and bookkeeping. He changed jobs in October 1942 to be an apprentice machinist at the Canadian Ornamental Iron Company on River Street which was fabricating doors and pontoons for the war effort.

On July 23, 1943 eighteen year old Gordon enlisted in the navy. In September he was transferred to Nova Scotia for training and was made an Ordinary Seaman on the HMCS Shawinigan in June 1944. Shawinigan was built in Quebec and launched in May 1941. She was a corvette and named, like other corvettes, after Canadian communities. They were built for coastal roles and were equipped with minesweeping gear. She did three round trips across the Atlantic as convoy protection in 1941. She was refitted twice and was re-entering service in June 1943.

HMCS Shawinigan ca. 1942. Canadian Department of National Defence photo.

She had a crew of 91 and several men were from Toronto. The most famous was arguably Dudley “Red” Garrett, the hockey player. He grew up in the Davisville neighbourhood, but when he enlisted, his family was living in the Beach on Balsam Avenue. He was signed by The Maple Leafs, but was soon traded to The New York Rangers for whom he played in the 1942-43 season. He joined the navy ten days before Gordon.

Dudley “Red” Garrett during trials with the Toronto Maple Leafs. From www.rongood.net.

Shawinigan sailed for Bermuda where she was worked up to operational strength and re-entered active service on August 11, 1944. She was assigned to patrol the Cabot Strait, mainly providing escort for the ferry between Port-aux-Basques, Newfoundland and Sydney, Nova Scotia. German U-Boats prowled the waters off the east coast, some even sailing up the St. Lawrence River. The Cabot Strait was a hot spot for enemy submarines and in 1942, the Port-aux-Basques/Sydney ferry had been torpedoed with the loss of 136. Shawinigan was protecting Burgeo, the new ferry. On November 24, 1944 Shawinigan and the US Coast Guard tender Sassafrass safely escorted Burgeo to Port-aux-Basques. Sassafrass left the escort without relief. Shawinigan radioed that the ship would patrol for submarines overnight and would meet the ferry in the morning. The next morning Burgeo arrived at the rendezvous point and Shawinigan wasn't there. The ferry continued to Sydney and the captain reported the ship as missing only when he arrived.

The Evening Telegram, December 7, 1944.

Searchers found some flotsam and six bodies of the 91 man crew. One was Dudley Garrett. In 1947 the AHL established the Dudley “Red” Garrett Memorial Award, still given each year to the most outstanding rookie.

Nineteen year old Gordon was never found and for a year, no one had any idea what had happened to the ship. At the end of the war the next May, German submarine U-1228 surrendered off the New England coast to the US Navy. Allied Intelligence cross-referenced the captain's log with missing ships and it was determined that at 0230 hrs on November 25, 1944, the submarine had fired a single torpedo on an Allied warship three miles off of Port-aux-Basques. The submarine was returning to Germany from the Gulf of St. Lawrence and encountered Shawinigan. It fired a Gnat torpedo, which homed in on the sound of Shawinigan. Four minutes later the ship exploded, sinking immediately with several underwater explosions. The date of Gordon's and the rest of the crew's deaths had been listed as the 24th, the date of the last radio contact, when in fact the ship sank on the 25th.

Gordon and his crewmates are remembered on the Halifax Memorial and on a memorial in Shawinigan, Quebec.

Memorial in Shawinigan, Quebec, to the memory of the crew of the HMCS Shawinigan. From www.forposterityssake.ca.

Gordon's mother Mary lived with Percy Jr's family on Riverdale Avenue, passing away during the early 1950s.