Hello From Canada

rlaughton · 14-03-2008, 06:13 PM

Hi Gang! I am new here today from Canada. Son of Royal Canadian Navy folk and not a service person myself, although Military History is my hobby. I found out about this site from Spidge, as he is looking for some help from "the other colonies" and I do try to help out when I can.

I spend most of my time tracking the Canadian Expeditionary Force in WWI but I have a lot of information and have read a lot about WWII. Problem is, limited WWII records are available in Canada. As a Navy brat I grew up learning everything about Convoys and Corvettes. My Dad was on convoy duty and my Mom was the Paymaster in Halifax. She withheld his pay until he took her out on a date. She won!

I will watch and learn and assist as I can on matters that need input from Canada. I was pleased to learn of this site as the WWII Forum sites I have visited failed to gain my interest. This looks like a good find!

Kyt · 14-03-2008, 06:18 PM

Welcome Richard, any friend of Spidge's is a friend of ours

That certainly is good pedigree, and it sounds like your mother is spirited lady

I hope you enjoy posting here - we try to be as international as possible, and though we have a number (too many?

..) Aussies, Canadian contributions are very welcome. And the nautical interest will please Hugh.

What were the ships that your father served on?

sgt petts · 14-03-2008, 06:24 PM

Hi Richard,

Welcome.

rlaughton · 14-03-2008, 06:31 PM

Bear with me at the start as I learn the posting techniques of this site. The ships were as follows:

The war time ships (Corvettes) of Lt. C. V. Laughton R.C.N.

HMCS Arnprior K494

HMCS Agassiz K129

HMCS Cobalt K124

I know he was on the Arnprior at the time of the Chebogue rescue, I remember the pictures. Too bad now, all the memorabilia was lost in our 1967 house fire. A few pictures remain with the files that I had from my grandparents.

Although we were brought up in the "Strict Navy Tradition" there was not much talk of the war, but Jane's Defence Weekly was always on the coffee table and I remember we never missed a Navy film or "12 O'Clock High". Most of his buddies were Air Force, as the main training stations of Centralia and Clinton were near our home in Exeter.

Hugh · 14-03-2008, 06:44 PM

Hello Richard,
Welcome aboard! I am sure you will enjoy the site. I look forward to your postings.
Regards
Hugh

Kitty · 14-03-2008, 06:45 PM

Watcha Richard, welcome to the forum. As to posting techniques? hit whatever button takes your fancy and see what happens. Works for us Mods, except for Kyt who manages to break the forum once a week

morse1001 · 14-03-2008, 07:05 PM

Hello Richard, welcome to the forum, you wil find a great place to share your interests!

Nostalgair · 14-03-2008, 08:33 PM

Hi Richard,

Welcome aboard!

Cheers

Owen

spidge · 14-03-2008, 10:21 PM

Welcome Richard,

Glad to have you aboard.

We look forward to some interesting threads as personal family history involvement is what makes the forum interesting.

We also like to be involved with the personal who were not on the front line. Each of them an important link in the chain. Without their contribution, victory would not have been possible.

I am proud of Australia's contribution to peace as you certainly are to that of Canada. Whilst predominantly WW2 based, we introduced sections in the forum of "Pre WW2 & Post WW2 which allows discussion on "any war or battle".

Did you know that there was a Canadian unit in Australia during ww2? As I mentioned to you previously, there were three Canadians buried here during ww2. I will post their photos in another thread.

Cheers

Geoff

rlaughton · 15-03-2008, 02:13 AM

Thanks for all the warm welcomes. I have been poking around to see what is going on and to learn the art of posting here, as all Forums seem to be a similar but different. Truly a Canadian analysis.

As I said I am not a WWII expert in any sense but I do love to use new technology to look at Military History from my bunker here in Milton, Ontario. I am doing a lot of work tracking soldiers from my birth and home community and I enjoy also using that to look at battle plans in a modern time. As such, I am doing work on using Google Earth to put these maps in context of international viewers.

Just to illustrate my interest and willingness to "try anything" and "learn anything", I hauled out my WWII atlas, looked for an interesting Australian action and put it up on Google Earth. I am not sure how many members are familiar with the process and program but it is a fascinating tool for military research, past and present. You can download the program for free (Google Earth Free Download) and use that to view the work of others or to start to create your own. It is not difficult to use and gives amazing results. I would be pleased to assist anyone that wants to give it a whirl.

For my test tonight I chose the Australian versus Japanese advance around New Guinea in August - September 1943. It illustrates the power of the process as I am not familiar with the battle, am certainly not familiar with the area, so by reading about the battle and placing the map on Google Earth it all comes together in one simple process. To see the end result in Google Earth go to this link on my site at the Google Earth Community:

WWII Forum: Battle Maps

For those that just want to see a "snap shot" of what is there, here is an image captured during the process. This is not a complete "tour" but I have lots of those on the Google Earth Community (just do a user name search for "rlaughton") most of which relate to the Great War (and our local pubs, of course).

The real value of this is in Google Earth as you can alter the transparency settings, zoom in and out and rotate the map as well as change the plane of view. Try it, you will soon be hooked!

Click on the image to get a larger view: