Howard R. Nason

My father was born in 1898 and as a young lad became very intrigued, and expert at, a new invention called wireless communication.  It’s not the type of wireless we think of now, but was in its infancy. You could build your own sets, which he did, and trained himself in Morse code which was the only way to communicate then. So, by the time he was a teen he had a unique skill.

When the war started in July of 1914 he was 15 and experienced in wireless. I believe within a year he volunteered to join the merchant marine as an experienced wireless operator. I remember some of his stories about being the only wireless operator in convoys heading out from Halifax and the harrowing experience of the North Atlantic in winter storms.  Also, occasionally he talked of the German submarines that would sink ship after ship. He never embellished the stories and never talked much about what he did. I recall him saying once that one convoy was pretty well wiped out by the time they reached Britain. There was only one wireless operator in each convoy, and I’m surmising here, but I suspect his ship was in the centre of each convoy. 

 I was born in Canada during the Battle of Britain in WW2, and regretfully I never asked him many questions, but all his life he was a dedicated HAM (wireless) operator and spent his working life in the Federal Department of Transport, eventually the Superintendant for radio telecommunications for Ontario. He was self taught in all things technical as he had to leave school before finishing Grade 8 as was common in the early 1900’s.

I now realize just how motivated he was to learn something so new all by himself, and how very brave he was to do what he did as a teenager.

Ray Nason (Junior) age 77 when submitted in 2017

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