Sea cadets topic at historical meeting

BY ANNIE BIRD

When the Hantsport and Area Historical Society held its wind-up meeting for this year Nov. 28, the topic centered on local Sea Cadets.

President St. Clair Patterson’s opening vignette featured history of the local corp. He told how, in 1949, the late Ross Merriam, a returned naval veteran, set up a committee of the Navy League of Canada.

In the early 1950s, about 35 boys signed up to join the corps under the leadership of Merriam, who became the first Commanding Officer of the new unit known as “Lindsay.”

The name came from the convoy escort Corvette H.M.C.S. Lindsay. It had been named for a town in Lindsay, Ontario.

Some time later another Commanding Officer, Carl Pulsifer, was responsible for changing the name of the Cadets to “Minas.” That was for the Bangor Class Minesweeper H.M.C.S. Minas, named for the Minas Basin in the Bay of Fundy.

Patterson said, “most of the Bangors were named after Canadian towns and cities, the rest after bays and lakes.”

Prior to introducing the guests - Chief Petty Officer Mark Bulger and Naval Cadet Charlie Green, who focused on their trip to Vimy - Juanita Wilcox shared memories about when the Vimy memorial was dedicated.

Assisted by Cadet Green, Cadet Bulger gave a slide show presentation taking those present on a pictorial journey to the Tower of London, Trafalgar Square, the white cliffs of Dover and many other places of interest visited on their way to Vimy.

He said there were “five thousand Canadian youth all going to Vimy.” The largest Cadet corps was from Nova Scotia. There was a picture of a convoy of 48 buses used to transport the Canadians. The young men were impressed with the well-kept war cemeteries.

Cadet Green has a great uncle buried there. Cadet Bulger’s grandfather was a captain in the engineers. No doubt standing throughout the five-hour dedication ceremony of the war memorial will be a lasting memory for the youth.

Seeing the trenches and tools of war also left a marked impression. After Vimy, a side trip to Paris and the Eiffel Tower was rewarding.

Donald (Duck) Davison, a World War II, veteran thanked the young men for providing the interesting program. His father fought at Vimy. He and his family visited Vimy in 1968 and 1972.

Eighteen-year-old Chief Petty Officer Second Class Mark Bulger has been a member of the #76 Minas Sea Cadets for six years. A Hantsportonian, he’s the second highest-ranking cadet in the corp.

Naval Cadet Charlie Green is a former member of #76 Minas Sea Cadets. Now in the reserve, he was chosen to represent the youth of Nova Scotia on the trip to Europe. The 19-year-old lives in Centre Burlington.