John "Jack" Robert Christian Cuthbert

Jack served as an Able Seaman in the Royal Naval Reserve. His personal record shows his enlistment into the RCNVR (Volunteer Reserve) and explicitly notes his posting to the HMCS Fennel during December 1944.

The Fennel was originally built for the British before being transferred to Canada. Jack was involved with the rescue of survivors of the Clayoquot during one of the most poignant and harrowing rescue operations in the Royal Canadian Navy history.

On the morning of December 24, 1944, the Bangor-class minesweeper HMCS Clayoquot was conducting an anti-submarine sweep right outside the approaches to the Halifax harbour. Without warning, the German submarine U-806 fired an acoustic homing torpedo that struck the Clayoquot’s stern. The ship sank rapidly in the freezing waters. As the ship went down, eight crew members were trapped below deck. In a famous and heartbreaking moment of RCN history, the survivors on the life rafts and the men trapped inside, exchanged final salutes, and the survivors began singing Silent Night as the ship slipped beneath the waves. The HMCS Fennel was nearby and rushed directly into the danger zone, knowing that sailors exposed to the icy December North Atlantic would only survive for minutes. The Fennel deployed its own whaling boats and scramble nets. The crew-including John Cuthbert…successfully hauled three officers and seventy-two sailors out of the freezing waters and off Carley floats.

At the end of his service, Jack was given $750 for schooling or housing, so following the war Jack moved to Georgetown and used the money to purchase the house at 43 Churchill Cres., where he and Ethel Kemshead Cuthbert (WW2) lived from just after the war until 1970 when they moved to Wasaga Beach. While living in Georgetown, Jack worked at the Barber Paper Mill.

“Jack” John Robert Christian Cuthbert died in Georgetown on February 26, 2009 at the age of 85 years and is buried in Georgetown at Greenwood Cemetery.

Truly a Canadian Hero. His story lives on.

*Information provided by Chris Cuthbert and taken from Ancestry.ca