navy

Nicola Peffers Black Deck book cover

Refuge in the Black Deck: The Story of Ordinary Seaman Nicola Peffers by Nicola Peffers

he HMCS Winnipeg is a frigate in the Canadian Navy, and it is also the ship that Ordinary Seaman (OS) Nicola Peffers served aboard for approximately two years, starting in 2009. Fresh out of marine electrical training, she boards ship in Hawaii, full of optimism, excitement and national pride.

Refuge in the Black Deck is an amazing memoir of time spent aboard ship, and Nicola Peffers takes us along as she goes from a proud, intelligent wide-eyed recruit to a lifeless, burned out, alcoholic, weed-smoking shell of her former self by the end of her deployment.… Continue reading

War at Sea by Ken Smith

Seventy years. Yes, it has been 70 years – practically an entire generation – since the end of WWII and, as well, the end of the Battle of the Atlantic. A battle that started just a few hours after the declaration of war in 1939 and ran until the cessation of hostilities in 1945, thus making it the longest-running battle of WWII. At the end of it all, Canada’s Navy which started with just a few small, aging ships, was the third largest navy in the world, surpassed only by Britain and the U.S.… Continue reading