Léon-Paul Fortin   [Editor's note: These textual excerpts are from an interview in September 1998, given by Mr. Léon-Paul Fortin to Julie Fournier of the Naval Museum of Quebec.] The HMCS Charlottetown was sunk on September 11, 1942, at 8: 30 in the morning, near Cap Chat. At the time it was torpedoed, the HMCS Charlottetown was assigned escort duty for Quebec – Sydney convoys in the sector of Gulf of the St. Lawrence. After escorting convoy SQ-35, the corvette was returning to its base at Gaspé. The corvette was moving slowly, without performing the zigzag manoeuvres it should. As it was the change of the watch, there was a lot of activity on the ship. The HMCS Charlottetown was hit by two torpedoes and sank in roughly three to four minutes. Leon-Paul Fortune, survivor of the torpedo attack on HMCS Charlottetown, tells how he lived through this enemy attack. Seaman Léon-Paul Fortin on shore leave Léon-Paul Fortin collection "[...] I was in the water for four hours with a broken arm and leg. I was there, surely there. It's because my time hadn't come as I took a blow that could have proved fatal to me, because the torpedo struck just below where I was. So, I flew through the air, I somersaulted, then fell back onto the part of the ship that was left. [...] I made my way to my abandon ship station there. [...] Then, I was to go to the longboat on the left side. [...] But we couldn't get the longboat to the water as the ship had been hit on the right side and it was listing like this [...] The harder we lifted it to push it outwards, the more it would move in. Once the water reached us, the Captain said: « The hell with it, everybody in the water." "[...] I was in the water for at least two and a half hours, three hours in the fog and in the oil because the ship had been hit in the oil tanks. [...] At one point, the fog lifted, but there was a longboat that they had managed to get into the water; it was the longboat from the right side. They had managed to get it into the water. But there were already 29 people on board. [...] When they saw me, they tried to come closer to me, but I swam towards them. Then they said: ' Hold onto the side.' I held onto the side for a while, but not for long, as I was at the end of my rope. At the end of my rope, I said to them: 'If you don't let me on board, I'm just going to let go. So two of my buddies, I don't know which ones, gave up their places because they weren't injured. [...] They hauled me on board and laid me out on the bottom of the longboat. I never lost consciousness [...] I didn't want to have anything to do with anything then." The explosion of the ship's depth charges caused the death of some men, while other members of the ship's complement fell victim to the cold and the oil. Outcome: 10 men killed, including Captain John W. Bonner. The recovery of the survivors, which lasted between three and a half and six hours, was conducted by HMCS Clayoquot and by fairmiles. The survivors were then taken to the hospital in Gaspé. "We arrived at ten o'clock at night. The ship was torpedoed at eight o'clock in the morning, and they picked us up at eleven thirty. And the time it took, we were facing Cap Chat; we weren't far." HMCS Charlottetown Naval Museum of Quebec Photo: Royal Canadian Navy   Unable to treat Léon-Paul Fortin at the Hôpital de Gaspé, the nuns sent him to the Naval Base at Gaspé, where a decision about him was to be taken. The military authorities chose to send him to Halifax by putting him on board the HMCS Arrowhead, which was heading to Sydney, Nova Scotia. Léon-Paul Fortin had to make the rest of the trip by train. Once in Halifax, he was sent to the temporary military hospital. Because of his worsening injuries, the bone in his arm was setting incorrectly; he was transferred to a general hospital in Halifax a week later. He was to wait for another ten days before undergoing necessary surgery. The adventure Léon-Paul Fortin lived through is not an isolated one, as a good number of sailors saw their ships attacked and sunk by German torpedoes during the Battle of the St. Lawrence. Tens of them found death, while others were lucky enough to be rescued and survived these attacks. Nonetheless, Léon-Paul Fortin's account is unique because it tells of an event which was difficult and which marked him for life. A player in the Battle of the St. Lawrence, Léon-Paul Fortin remains a significant witness of wartime in Quebec.