Frederick B. Watt

While I thought this was a book about the Battle of the Atlantic, it turned out to be more than stories about the battle at sea. The main focus turned out to be the Naval Boarding Service, a group of men who initially were to check merchant ships for saboteurs who were hiding bombs in the cargo or were sabotaging ship's mechanical equipment. Quickly they came to spend much of their time improving safety and quality of life for merchant seamen and negotiating solutions to disputes between the seamen and the ships officers or owners.
The Naval Boarding Service started in Halifax because most convoys left from there in the War's early years but when it proved so successful at solving shipping issues, it was implemented in all Canadian ports and eventually American and British ones as well. Watt was the officer put in charge of the NBS in Halifax at the beginning so he is an excellent source for how it developed. He is also a very good writer which made this book very readable. In 1943 he published a narrative poem entitled Who dare to Live in both Canada and the United States.… (mer)