James Bay & I

This unglamorous little ship was my first official appointment to sea as an officer, and the last I would have chosen. Minesweepers are the unappreciated Cinderellas of modern navies. They are also the only warships expected to do their extremely dangerous jobs -- even in peace time -- with no real form of self protection, but I didn't think of that when I joined James Bay. I was just pissed off because I hadn't been given a "Cadillac" (one of the super modern destroyers) like Fraser.

My juvenile annoyance was nothing compared to the feelings of the handful of officers comprising a minesweeper's wardroom. I was still a Midshipman ("snottie"), and Nelsonian tradition dictated that one of the ship's officers would have to act as a "Snottie's Nurse". Human nature being what it is, everything worked out backwards. To begin with, I joined James Bay in Santa Barbara, California. She was at anchor between minesweeping exercises off the Santa Catalina Islands, and so was a large yacht. Some girls came by in a high speed launch and invited me to a party on board. The yacht belonged to Errol Flynn. He was absent but the party continued. (In one of the curious interlockings which mean nothing, shortly after this episode the woman who would become my wife was on duty as an Emergency nurse at the hospital in Vancouver when Flynn was brought in, and died.)

Aboard James Bay, everything I thought I would hate, I loved. Because of her small size -- and a first class Captain, John Coates -- I was immediately given responsibility, and treated almost as an equal in the wardroom. The unfortunate Reserve Sub Lieutenant stuck with the burden of being my Nurse had both brains and a sense of the absurd: Ed Mortimer became a lifelong friend.

The navy being the navy, I had no sooner got my sea legs, and begun to thoroughly enjoy being a lowly sweeper, than I was appointed away -- to the very dream I had first begged for: HMCS Fraser . Human nature repeating itself, I didn't want to go.

There is a coda to this story. Five years later I was re-appointed to James Bay (the only ship I served in twice) as Second in Command. When the captain introduced me to the crew he said, re my departing predecessor, Lieutenant Bloggins, "I have just lost my right hand man, but with Lieutenant Gurr we have a new left hand." My respect -- for his ability as a commanding officer -- was mutual.

P.S. After her decommissioning, James Bay continued a working life at sea with Greenpeace.

For a juvenile view of her youth, in Technicolor, see this Indifferent Sketch from my 1957 Snottie's Journal.

Top