Nova Scotia/Nunavut Command of The Royal Canadian Legion www.ns.legion.ca 39 Captain Harry DeWolf continued ... “I was scared to death of mines,” DeWolf said. “Here we were drifting sideways and I thought any minute we can strike a mine, and then we’ve lost two ships, not one.” He also knew he would soon put his own ship at risk as dawn was fast approaching and Haida would lose cover of darkness. “What we were afraid of, and taught to be afraid of, was air attack in daylight,” DeWolf said later in an interview. “We had no protection against dive bombers.” He delayed as long as he could to pick up as many survivors as possible. As the day dawned and DeWolf’s self-imposed deadline had passed, three Haida seamen stayed behind in a motor cutter to pick up more Athabaskan sailors from the water. One of them was Able Seaman Jack Hannam. “When I was on the gun they were calling for volunteers to give a hand on the upper deck...to get the survivors on board,” Hannam recalled later. “So, I went from my gun down below and when I got down to the port side where the motor cutter was, the officer of the deck at that time was asking for a volunteer to go down and let her go. So, I climbed in the motorboat and went down with her.” In the end, when Haida slowly began to gather speed and turn away from Athabaskan, it had 42 shipmates on board. When the ship sailed into Plymouth, England, it was to the cheers of the entire fleet and DeWolf was awarded a Distinguished Service Order (DSO) on the spot. This is just one story from a long list of DeWolf’s accomplishments as a skilled strategist in naval combat. During his 14 months in command of Haida, which included Arctic convoys and destroyer actions in the English Channel, Haida participated in the sinking of more than a dozen enemy vessels. As a result, along with the DSO, DeWolf was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross for courage and skill in action against German destroyers, and was twice the subject of a Mention in Dispatches for bravery, courage and determination in the face of the enemy. His exceptional wartime service was recognized with an appointment as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire and as an Officer of the U.S. Legion of Merit. The Royal Canadian Navy recognized DeWolf’s heroism by naming its first Arctic Offshore Patrol Vessel (AOPV) after him. The AOPVs will be known as the Harry DeWolf class, with HMCS Harry DeWolf as the lead ship.
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