Laurence Hammick packed his memories of the Second World War into a small brown suitcase and never showed any of it to his daughter.
Hammick was one of 38 survivors who spent an hour in the cold, oily waters before being being rescued by HMCS Giffard. Hammick went on to work at the post office on Glanford Avenue, enjoyed music and ballroom dancing and generally lived a happy life — though it was cut short at age 57 when he suffered a fatal heart attack.Kathleen Hammick rediscovered her father’s suitcase of war memories when her stepsister was cleaning out the family home in Cordova Bay in December.
Hocking returned to Victoria after the war. Including a leave of absence for war service, he worked for British Columbia Coastal Marine, a division of the Canadian Pacific Railway, for 45 years. He died in 2009, survived by his wife of 63 years, Vera, and five children. Carla Wilson, a Times Colonist reporter and niece of Roderick Wilson, said his loss was heartbreaking for the family.
The Royal Canadian Navy said amid exploding ammunition lockers and boilers that immediately killed sections of crew, the ship’s captain, Lt.-Cmdr Dermott T. English of Halifax, started singing For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow while clinging to the side of a float as the Valleyfield slipped below the waves.
Stoker Charles Coleman, 20, of Victoria, from the rescue corvette Giffard, was among five naval men who volunteered to set out in the oily waters in a dinghy to rescue crew members from the Valleyfield.
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