Nova Scotia/Nunavut Command of The Royal Canadian Legion www.ns.legion.ca 165 Ryland Leroy Marshall Royal Canadian Navy Service No. V37508 Ryland’s Story My name is Ryland Leroy Marshall. I was born 24 December 1921 in Truro, NS and I’m the second oldest of five children. What a bad time to be born. I always got gypped out of birthday presents and rarely had a birthday party. The house I was born in is still standing at 27 Exhibition Street, straight across from the main door of the Legion. The man who built the house was a counterfeiter who got caught and was sent to jail; so my father got a real good deal out of it. We were a close family. My Dad worked at Stanfield’s and I had two younger brothers who were in the Army and both were in Normandy. Thank God all three of us returned home from the war. After I graduated from High School, I completed one year of studies in Sciences at the Nova Scotia Agriculture College. In 1941, I went down to Halifax to join the Air Force but when they gave me the medical I failed the eye sight portion. I told the guy doing the testing that I really wanted to get into the military so he advised me to go try the Navy. He said the Navy didn’t have the equipment to do eye tests that the Air Force had and he told me what to do when it came time for my eye test. His words of wisdom were “doing both hands over the same eye”. So I went to the Navy recruiters, did what I was told, and passed. I went back home to Truro waiting for my call. In the meantime I had an appendix attack and had surgery. Well I recovered and by Spring of 1942 I was enlisted in the Navy. I took communication training in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec and by summer I was sent back to Halifax onboard the corvette HMCS Battleford. I served there for three years. The HMCS Battleford did convoy duty between St. John’s, Newfoundland and Ireland and the Mediterranean. We escorted all transportation ships, freighters, tankers, whatever went overseas. I made approximately 58 trips over and back! My job as a Coder was to decode all secret messages that came in. The first six months I was onboard, I was seasick all the time. I couldn’t eat and let me tell you it wasn’t much of a life. I slept in a hammock and wore the same clothes 12 days at a time with no showers. I drank a lot of tomato juice. The food on ship was pretty good once I was able to keep it down. Those corvettes were so rough that when food was placed on the tables it very quickly ended up on the floor. I remember one young man who was seasick as well. He was fairly new on the ship and one-day he just disappeared. He apparently jumped overboard and committed suicide. continued ... Marshall Home on Exhibition Street This clipping photo from the 1942 Daily News recalls Rylee Marshall’s hockey days!
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