Today's military post goes back to WW2 and a Royal Canadian Navy Petty Officer who got an unexpected taste of home. This story is from The Place Between Volume 2 1939-1970 and was written by Aldergrove resident & veteran Ben F Smith.
During World War II, I served with the Canadian Navy as an ERA (Petty Officer, Engine Room). While on the frigate HMCS Jonquiere, we were assigned to something called Western Approaches, where we operated out of Great Britain and were either on convoy duty or anti-submarine patrol.
I believe we were on our way to Iceland and I had just come off watch, all set to tuck into breakfast when I could hardly believe my eyes. There in front of me was a real egg. What a delicacy! We had been suffering with those ruddy powdered eggs which tasted like sawdust, and now here I was about to tuck into a real honest-to-goodness egg.
It was then I spotted some markings on the egg in indelible ink. There were the words: "P Swensson Aldergrove." I could not believe it. Pete Swensson lived about one mile away from my home in Aldergrove. It was Pete who organized the badminton club, in which I played, in the old Agricultural Hall.
And here, this egg had come clear across Canada and across the Atlantic Ocean to land on my plate. Small world! I carefully saved that piece of eggshell between a couple of pieces of cardboard and put it in my locker for safe keeping. However, somehow, during the war and moving about, it got lost. Believe me, that darned old egg sure brought me just a little bit closer to home, even though I was miles away.
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