Indiana Jones in the Royal Canadian Navy
His incredible real-life deeds make Indiana Jones look like Mary Poppins, yet few Canadians have ever heard of Commodore O.C.S. “Long Robbie” Robertson.
Owen Connor Struan “Robbie” Robertson was born in Victoria, British Columbia, on April 16, 1907. He wasn’t called “Long Robbie” for nothing. He was six feet seven inches tall.
He first went to sea, “below decks,” in 1924 as an ordinary seaman with the Canadian Government Merchant Marine. When World War II broke out, he was a lieutenant commander and captain of the HMCS Fundy. By 1943, he was commanding officer of the HMC Dockyard and king’s harbour master in Halifax.
At 0720 hours on November 3, 1943, a U.S. freighter, SS Volunteer, was on fire in Halifax harbour. She was loaded with ammunition — 500 tons of light ammunition, 2,000 drums of highly combustible magnesium, 1,800 tons of heavy howitzer ammunition, depth charges, and cases of dynamite. Twenty-six years earlier the French munitions ship, Mont Blanc, blew up in Halifax harbour killing almost 2,000 people and wounding more than 4,000; 1,700 homes were destroyed and 12,000 were damaged. Few panes of glass remained in Halifax/Dartmouth. By way of comparison, the Mont Blanc was carrying 2,300 tons of picric acid, 200 tons of TNT, 10 tons of gun cotton, and 35 tons of benzol. The SS Volunteer had a potential for disaster equal to the original Halifax Explosion.
Long Robbie boarded the vessel and found most of the crew had abandoned ship and the officers were drunk. He donned an asbestos hood and oxygen mask and descended into the stokehold (compartment on a steamship housing boilers and furnaces) where the fire had started. Explosions began in number three hold.
Robertson asked the intoxicated ship’s master for permission to flood number three hold and he refused. Long Robbie began rigging hose to flood the hold and called for the U.S. Naval Liaison Officer. Lieutenant Commander Stanley, U.S. Navy (USN), arrived, stripped the intoxicated captain of his command, took command himself, and turned it over to Robertson.
By this time, the fire had spread to number two hold. Robertson called for tugs and had the Volunteer towed to McNab Island, where he intended to open the sea cocks and scuttle the vessel off Mauger’s Beach in a deep trough. But first, he had to deal with a build-up of cordite fumes that could blow any second. He ordered his firefighting party to stack bales of tobacco around the magnesium drums and cut holes in the main deck above the drums. Then, he fired a rifle at the magnesium drums and the resulting explosion snuffed out the fire. The holes he had ordered cut in the deck allowed flames and gases to escape. It was 1600 hours. A time bomb had been defused. For 8 hours and 40 minutes, Halifax had been on the brink of a second horrific disaster. Long Robbie Robertson was awarded the George Medal — one of seven (plus four bars) awarded to naval personnel in World War II.
Why only a George Medal? In 1866, a British Army private soldier, Timothy O’Hea, 20, extinguished a fire on a train travelling between Quebec and Montreal. A railway car carrying a ton of ammunition was uncoupled near Danville. Private O’Hea doused the fire with buckets of water. He was awarded a peacetime Victoria Cross. O’Hea saved a railway car, its cargo, and some nearby buildings. Long Robbie Robertson may have saved half of Halifax/Dartmouth.
His wartime heroism was not at an end by any means. Two years later, in July 1945, there was an explosion and fire in the Bedford magazines. The magazines were underground bunkers along the shoreline of Bedford Basin and extended for more than a half-kilometre. The concrete compartments held hundreds of thousands of tons of shells, torpedoes, ammunition, and TNT. Long Robbie was placed in command of the firefighting party that knocked the fire down. It took them four days. The Royal Canadian Navy credited him with averting “an unthinkable disaster.”
On November 21, 1954, the HMCS Labrador entered Halifax harbour. The 6,500-ton modified wind class Arctic patrol vessel had just become the very first Canadian warship to circumnavigate North America and the first vessel to do it in a single voyage. The Labrador was the first warship to negotiate the Northwest Passage across the top of the world and return home by way of the Panama Canal. Her skipper was Captain O.C.S. Robertson.
The Labrador and the RCMP vessel St. Roch had a historic rendezvous off Point Atkinson. The St. Roch had navigated the Northwest Passage twice and, in 1950, circumnavigated North America. They sailed into Vancouver harbour together. The St. Roch went to a permanent home in a maritime museum. Robbie Robertson attended the vessel’s transfer to Vancouver. Buglers from the Labrador gave her a final salute. She set course for the Panama Canal and home to Halifax.
Robbie had spent two years working and training with the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard before his voyage through the Northwest Passage. He had an excellent working relationship with the Americans. When he was attached to the U.S. Navy for polar operations, he was a crew member of the blimp ZTG-2 during its voyage to Arctic ice island T-3 in 1958.
Then, he served as ice pilot aboard the U.S. submarine USS Seadragon during its underwater run of the Northwest Passage in 1960. He also served as ice pilot under the polar ice pack on board the U.S. submarine USS Sargo. One of his underwater voyages was to the North Pole in August/September 1960. Thus, he became not only the very first naval officer to negotiate the Northwest Passage and circumnavigate North America — he also became the first person to sail through the Northwest Passage both on the surface and submerged.
I first saw this courtly and aloof officer in the wardroom, HMCS Stadacona officers’ mess in Halifax in 1955. I was a second lieutenant in the Canadian Officers’ Training Corps doing my third phase (summer) with Six Company Service Corps, Halifax.
“Stad” was the place to go on Friday evenings after 5 p.m. The mess offered “Penny Beer” — buy a draft for a dime and get a second one for a penny. You could buy a tray of drafts for 66 cents.
Lowly 90-day wonders (second lieutenants) didn’t hobnob with captains and commodores with inches of gold braid on their sleeves. So, I didn’t get to meet Long Robbie. But at six feet seven inches, he was hard to miss. Besides, navy wardrooms were reserved and stuffy (“pusser”) officers’ clubs — totally opposite to the informal and sometimes rowdy army officers’ mess, Royal Artillery Park, at the foot of the Halifax Citadel, where I lived.
Years later, we both worked at Expo ’67, the 1967 Montreal World’s Fair. I was a senior PR officer and Robbie was on loan as a scientific advisor. We chatted often and I had no idea I was in the presence of one of Canada’s bravest heroes, because he never boasted, or even spoke of his achievements. He was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in June 1970. He passed away on November 22, 1994.
Fifty years ago, the Labrador slipped her moorings in Halifax and headed north. She carried an RCMP inspector, an RCMP constable and his family, 10 scientists, a ship’s company of 225 officers and men, and a 17-member dog team.
After their conquest of the Northwest Passage, publicity shy Robbie Robertson and his crew were mobbed by press and public when they sailed into Esquimalt on September 27, 1954. They left there October 11, but before they sailed, under cover of darkness, they installed one of their 750-pound Arctic beacons on the reviewing officer’s platform on the parade square. The next morning, the commodore had difficulty even finding enough footing to take the salute at ceremonial divisions.