Leslie Sanders

Leslie Sanders' father, Francis Alfred Sanders, was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, England in 1886 and married Edith Berry (born circa 1894) on October 4, 1912. Francis was a labourer. Their first son George Alfred was born in 1914 and Leslie arrived in Bradford on August 27, 1918. The family moved to Toronto in 1921 and were the first owners of 316 Lumsden Avenue. In 1923 a sister Evelyn was born. When he was about 8 years old in 1926, Leslie had to have an operation on his abdomen, probably an appendectomy. Leslie attended Danforth Park until he graduated, most likely in the Class of 1932, but it doesn't appear that he continued his education past Grade 8. Also in 1932 Edith gave birth to another son, Robert Edward.

Leslie found a job as a messenger for Canadian National Telegraph, delivering telegrams. His brother George also worked there as a messenger. Leslie joined the Royal Canadian Naval Reserve on January 27, 1937 and spent every Wednesday evening in service. On October 16, 1937 in Trinity Church, Leslie married his girlfriend Evelyn Ruth (surname unknown), a woman with the same first name as his sister. It appears the couple lived with Leslie's family in the Lumsden Avenue house and welcomed their daughter Loretta Ruth in March 1938.

In August 1938, Leslie applied to join the navy full-time and although his officers noted that he was outstanding material, he was put on a waiting list. He got tired of waiting and appealed to his member of parliament, Denton Massey, who wrote a letter in February 1939 to the Chief of the Naval Staff on his behalf, trying to see if anything could be done. The reply stated that Leslie was 142nd on the list and continued: “In view of the small number of vacancies anticipated, no definite promise can be given as to when it will be possible to effect Mr. Sanders' entry.” In retrospect, the navy's reply shows how unconcerned about war or the paucity of ships it had six months before World War II.

HMCS St Laurent, 1941. Source: Naval Museum of Alberta.

The navy became more concerned about the impending war as the year went on and in the summer Leslie was given word to report to Halifax. At the end of July he signed on for a seven year stint as a gunner, moving Evelyn and Loretta to Nova Scotia. He was assigned to the HMCS St. Laurent, a destroyer which had been bought from the Royal Navy in 1936. She had been in Esquimalt on Canada's west coast but when the war started on September 3, 1939, she was ordered to Halifax, arriving on September 18, to provide protection to ships carrying goods and personnel to Britain. Leslie joined the crew on October 13 as an Ordinary Seaman. The ship escorted local convoys and on December 10 she escorted half of the 1st Canadian Infantry Division on its way to Britain. The destroyer's escort duty was only for the first leg of the transatlantic crossing, usually returning to Halifax four days later. On December 22, St Laurent left with a convoy and Christmas in the Sanders house was delayed until Leslie's return on the 26th. Leslie was promoted to Able Seaman on January 29, 1940 and he left the crew on February 25, a veteran of four convoys. Leslie attended gunnery school in England, but it is unclear whether it was after he left St Laurent or during the summer of 1940, or both. On March 21, Evelyn gave birth to another daughter, Leslie Evelyn, in Halifax.

Once Leslie completed his course, he was assigned to the DEMES (Defensively Equipped Merchant Ship) Comedian on May 31. The Allies had been retrofitting merchant ships with low angle guns to provide some defence from enemy action. The guns were manned by military personnel and Canada had placed guns on 713 ships. Leslie's job was to man and shoot the gun while a merchant seaman would have passed him the shells.

A 4 inch gun on a DEMES ship. Source: Library and Archives Canada.

In July, Leslie was in Portsmouth, England, awaiting passage. He was assigned to the HMCS Margaree on September 6 as a gunner's mate. Like the St Laurent, the Margaree was a destroyer which had been transferred to the Canadian navy. She had spent the summer of 1940 being repaired and retrofitted in England and was the replacement for the HMCS Fraser which had been sunk in a collision with the HMS Calcutta on June 25. Leslie joined the crew when she was formally commissioned on September 6. The new crew included many of the Fraser survivors.

HMCS Margaree. From www.canada.ca.

While at port in London, she was slightly damaged by an enemy air raid. The retrofit was completed by October 13 and she left for Plymouth, arriving there the next day.

On October 17, she escorted Convoy OL8 to Canada from Britain via Londonderry, Northern Ireland and departed Londonderry on the 20th. The destroyer was escorting five merchant ships with the assistance of three other naval ships. Because it was a fast convoy, it did not zigzag across the ocean as did slower convoys to avoid detection by German submarines.

As recounted by Marc Milner in “First Blood in the The Atlantic: Navy Part 24,” Legion Magazine, November 1, 2007:

On the evening of Oct. 21, Margaree was 1½ miles ahead of the convoy’s port column and the weather had started to deteriorate. By midnight Margaree and the convoy had lost track of each other. Then, at 1 a.m. on the 22nd, Margaree suddenly appeared crossing Port Fairy’s bow, much too close for the ship to avoid her. In an almost repeat of Fraser’s loss, Port Fairy’s bow sliced through Margaree just under the bridge, severing the forward section of the ship. On this occasion, however, the whole bow and bridge portion of Margaree sank almost immediately, taking virtually everyone who was off watch in the forward messdecks or standing watch on the bridge down with it.

When Lieutenant Bill Landymore, who was off duty in the wardroom, came forward he heard only the whistling of the wind and the slam of the sea against Margaree’s hull. “There was no noise at all,” he later reported. “No shouts even in the after part. Not even the sound of escaping steam.” Others recalled the grinding of steel on steel, as what was left of Margaree rubbed against the towering sides of Port Fairy. Sub-Lieutenant Bob Timbrell and Able Seaman H.V. Holman had the good sense to scramble aft and set the depth charges to safe. Meanwhile, a quick look around revealed there was no wounded to tend to. All the casualties were in the now sunken forward half of the ship: 142 officers and men swallowed by the sea in an instant. Only six officers and 28 ratings survived the collision. Thirty-two of them scrambled safely up the side of Port Fairy, the two others slipped from the ropes and were crushed between the vessels. By dawn, the stern of Margaree was still afloat, despite attempts by Port Fairy’s little four-inch gun to sink it. The wreck was last seen adrift and sinking slowly by the stern.

Since no one survived from Margaree’s bridge, the Board of Enquiry was unable to determine the cause of her loss. The most likely scenario is that in the poor visibility she drifted slightly north, to the head of the starboard column of OL 8. According to this theory, when Margaree’s bridge personnel regained visual contact with the convoy at 1 a.m.–at very close range–they assumed they were still ahead of the port column. To get clear they took avoiding action to port, which immediately put the destroyer right across Port Fairy’s bow.

Other theories speculate on compass failure and navigation error contributing to the tragedy, but we will never know. The loss of 142 men was compounded by the fact that 86 of them were survivors of Fraser’s mishap. As author Fraser McKee wrote, “The loss of two destroyers by collision in four months was a bitter blow to the Canadian Navy and the large loss of lives was a shock to all at home.”

Leslie was Danforth Park's first war casualty. The school paid tribute to him at their Home and School Club meeting a few days later. He is commemorated on the Halifax Memorial. Evelyn and the two little girls moved back to Toronto into the Sanders' home on Lumsden. The next year Francis passed away and Evelyn and Edith lived in the house until the early 1950s.