[seafarer]

My Father served 4 years in the Canadian Navy (1941-45), on River Class frigates (crewed a K-gun as his action station), mostly doing convoy runs from NewFoundLand to Britain and later, Russia. He joined up at 17 and got his mother to sign the age waiver (told her if she didn't, he'd run away and join up anyway). His last ship was even sent to the Pacific in 1945, but the Pacific war ended before they had a chance to do anything there. They were paid off and discharged in Vancouver though (the ship was sold to the Indian Navy a year or so later). My uncle was killed (father's brother) in Italy while serving in the Canadian Army (he was a tank driver). We had another very good family friend who was practically an uncle to me who served with British Intelligence and I know spent most of 1942/43/44 in Europe, but he never really liked to talk about it much at all (I do remember he said he'd flown over in a Lysander at least once - I assume that was via 161 Squandron).

They are all gone now though.