Page 16 - Capt. Walter Boudreau's Story: Louisbourg Rescue, 1943, & The Sinking of the Angelus

ISSUE : Issue 64

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1993/8/1

that lifeboat. There's eight or nine men with you, and seas forty feet high, and that boat flips. Here you are flying through the air on a dark night in a storm. What do you feel?) I don't know about the other guys, but I think what made me live when they couldn't was I didn't think I was going to die. And I was determined that I wasn't going to. And I remember sitting on the keel of that boat singing at the top of my lungs. And doing this to keep warm. (Moving your arms back and forth, beating yourself.) Yeah, and singing. You know, "Roll Out the Bar? rel," or whatever. Loud, loud, loud. But never thinking that I was going to die. And I think that's what the difference was p between my mentality and, maybe, the guy next to me who said, "Oh, it's all over." That makes a big difference. • ? We had several of them singing. Loud sing? ing. Loud. As loud as you could sing. So you can get the picture. A boat upside down, big waves, bunch of men out there % x. BATTERED WOMEN AND YOUR CHILDREN If you need help: 539-2945 TRANSITION HOUSE No Habitat. No Fish! singing "Roll Out the Barrel"! (To turn a boat over in water....) Very heavy. I think that what we did, really, is we took advantage of a wave and helped the wave to turn it over, to roll it over. We couldn't do it alone. It had to be that the boat is almost going so we helped, and we just did the last teetering. But it happened five times, you see. (Was this the adventure you hoped to have on a square-rig?!) No. It's not what I had in mind! END Our thanks to Jean Kyte, who has continued to research the res? cue of the crew of SC 709, and has published more details In Heritage Notes, Number 3, January, 1993 • a publication of Louisbourg Heritage Society (P. O. Box 396, Louisbourg, NS BOA IMO). She supplied the photos of SC 709and information for our map on page 3. Walter Boudreau spent his life sailing and continued to return to Cape Breton. From 1946 to 1954, he was based in Sydney or Baddeck, captain of the schooner Yan? kee, the seal-hunter Inverleigh, and the coaster Keltic. But that is another, future, story. NEW AND/OR EXISTING BUSINESS We Offer Financial & Technical Assistance. Oceanside Assistance Group Limited GLACE BAY, N. S. B1A3B9 For further assistance, call Don Tobin, Development OfUcer PHONE 849-0544 • FAX 849-0549 NOW AT 229 Kings Road SYDNEY FOURTRAX ? 300 Full-time 4-wheel drive ??y loads igle-cyliirder aix-coored 4-stroke engine (TRX3004X4)

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