Story of the Boarding of the Hermonthis
Your
name is Stanislas Déry and you enroll as an officer in the Royal Canadian
Naval Volunteer Reserve (RCNVR) in Québec in 1934. You travel on Navy
ships and accumulate sea experience as an officer. In the autumn of 1939, the
Second World War breaks out and you are mobilized as an RCNVR officer. Unfortunately,
you have to await the arrival of Canadian boats for nearly a whole year at Saint-Jean,
Île d'Orléans, as Canada only has four vessels when the war begins.
You are finally called to go aboard HMCS Prince Henry in the autumn of 1940,
but you have to wait on shore for a month while this former cruise vessel is
converted and armed. In early December, your crew heads for Halifax, where you
spend another month waiting for your ship, HMCS Prince Henry, to be repaired
and made ready.
Your first real departure to sea, although the Second World War is already
raging, does not take place until early January 1941. You are the fourth officer
aboard HMCS Prince Henry. On this ship, you head for Bermuda, where you and
you crew are to await instructions for your first mission. Your crew soon receives
orders to proceed through the Panama Canal to carry out patrol and naval control
duties on the west coast of South America. Your mission is to block the exits
from the ports and to immobilize any German or Italian ships anchored there.
These boats are trying to leave port to resupply the army of their ally Japan.
During the night, HMCS Prince Henry patrols the sea, but in the daytime, it
must go farther offshore, so as not to be seen by the enemy. You find this work
highly monotonous and highly difficult because of the tropical climate of South
America.
One
fine day, you and your crew notice that four German boats seem to be preparing
to leave, for they are taking live pigs on board. You watch them closely and
finally see them steaming at top speed toward the open sea.
What do you do?
