Throughout more than five years, nothing fazed this tough-as-nails Navy man.
Reprinted from Downhome, March 2018
by Ashley Miller
“You look around her and you’ll see me all around,” says Halstead Gosse, gesturing towards framed photos hung on the walls surrounding him. His much younger self, decked out in the Royal Navy’s finest, stares back from the black-and-white photographs on display in his living room in scenic Queen’s Cove, Trinity Bay.
“Ten fellas joined from Queen’s Cove. I was the only one joined the Armed Forces; all the rest joined the Forestry in the woods over in Scotland,” says the proud Second World War veteran who turns 96 this month.
In 1940, Halstead boarded the SS Baccalieu in St. John’s (followed by the MV Georgic in Halifax, NS) headed for war-torn Europe. After a rough passage, the new arrivals were greeted in Liverpool, England by the sights and sounds of a German air raid underway. Despite the planes circling, bombs exploding and fires raging, Halstead insists he was not afraid – and adds, rather sternly that he remained that way throughout his five-and-a-half-years at war.
Turmoil at Sea
Following training, Halstead was drafted to HMS Totland, on which he served as a gunner until war’s end. On loan to the Royal Navy, the United States Coast Guard cutter served mainly as an escort, protecting convoys headed all over the coastlines of Africa, to the Mediterranean Sea and back across the Atlantic to the islands of the Caribbean.
“Our main [objective] was U-boats,” explains Halstead. “We had a device that used to tell us where the submarines was and then you’d get close to it, or hover over it, set your depth charge at a certain depth and drop it. Depth charges were 350 lbs of powder.”
One U-boat confirmed destroyed by HMS Totland was U522 In February 1943, the German sub was among a throng of U-boats involved in a coordinated attack on a convoy of oil tankers that Totland was escorting to the Caribbean. In the mid-Atlantic Ocean, the submarines sunk three of the convoy’s ships and damaged two others. While the Totland survived the violent ordeal, its sailors were tasked with the grizzly responsibility of retrieving survivors from the lost vessels – an experience Halstead remembers to this day. He recalls a scrambling net being tossed over the side of the Totland, which able-bodied survivors used to climb aboard. Meanwhile, Halstead and his fellow sailors helped the injured to safety.
“I lugged several to our ship, picked them out of the water when they were torpedoed … you had to swim and drag them along with you,” he says, adding only that they were in “very bad shape.”
The book The Hand-Me-Down Ships by Ken Reed touches on that particular rescue: “The trauma of saving survivors from the sea is, to some extent, born of – ‘there, but for the Grace of God, go I.’ It is always the more heart-rending in the case of tanker casualties, where the injuries, most extensively burns, are so horrific. Totland took on board a number of such cases. Whilst the less-badly injured were transferred to a rescue ship, the serious cases were retained on board and given the best possible attention.”
The Totland carried on to the Caribbean island of Antigua with the injured and dying. Upon arrival, says Halstead, the wounded were taken to hospital, while those who did not survive the journey were buried at sea. Months later, HMS Totlan was recognized for its actions that tragic day, having destroyed U522 amid the tumult – along with its German commander, responsible for the sinking of no less than nine Allied ships.
But not all Halstead’s experiences overseas were matters of life and death – some were matters of the heart. While serving along the coast of South Africa, he confesses he fell in love with a local girl from a wealthy farming family in Durban. He has memories of visiting the family’s exotic (to his eyes) orchard, which grew “every kind of fruit,” and pilfering stalks of sugar cane – which he craftily used to make alcohol back on the ship – from their sprawling 750-acre property.
“We left Durban to do our usual run. We got part of the way up through the Indian Ocean, we gets word that the war [in Europe] was over. Certainly, we had to carry on then to England,” he says. “I never had a chance to tell her anything, but I would have married her.” That former flame, named Millie Saunders, left such an impression on Halstead that his children once tried to track her down – with no luck.
With no time to spare for a broken heart, Halstead immediately began preparations to go to Japan; he was still in training when the ware there, too, came to an abrupt end. Finally, after more than five years of service, Halstead says he was one of the lucky ones, returning home with no injuries – though he suffered from recurring bouts of malaria (which he contracted in Africa) form some seven years.
Awaiting him back at home, were his family, friends and a small, but welcome, nest egg. Halstead explains a portion of his wartime pay was regularly directed to his parents – not a cent of which they ever spent. “My mother put it in the bank, every time she got a cheque, a little bit of money,” says Halstead. “And when I got home she had $750 to give m.”
And before long, the sting of his lost love was abated by finding a new one. Halstead married Mabel Robbins of nearby Hatchet Cove in June 1948. During their 60-year marriage, the couple welcome five children – including a son, Wayne, who followed in Halstead’s footsteps, joining the Navy and fighting in the Gulf War. (Mabel passed away in 2009.) Halstead spent much of his life working as a contractor, building houses in St. John’s and in the Queen’s Cove area. He also helped establish the Royal Canadian Legion in nearby Clarenville.
The great-great-grandfather proudly maintains that his experiences at war never weigh on his still-sharp mind.
“I was never afraid. I went through five-and-a-half years of it, never bothered me … no nightmares, nothing,” says Halstead, musing that the only thing in life worth fearing is “the devil … maybe.”
The Fearless Sailor – PDF – Downhome Article
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Transcribed by Wanda Garrett, January 2022.
These transcriptions may contain human errors. As always, confirm these as you would any other source material