All posts by Dinger

About Dinger

A sea cadet at RCSCC LION from 1963 to 1968, I joined the Naval Reserve at HMCS STAR in 1968 as a Bos'n. I was an Officer Cadet in the ROUTP, commissioned in 1971, and awarded my watchkeeping ticket in 1973. I served at sea, at one time or another, in all five Gate Vessels and HMCS FORT STEELE & CHAUDIERE as well as the Coast Guard icebreaker Louis St. Laurent and served as OIC of the patrol vessels RALLY and RAPID. At STAR from 1968 to 2007, I served as XO twice and then as CO from 2002 to 2005. I rounded out my career by serving as SSO Training at NAVRESHQ in Quebec City in 2008, retiring in 2009 as CO of HMCS HUNTER in Windsor. I was Executive Director for the Friends of HMCS HAIDA till 2011 and have been an active volunteer onboard HAIDA since she arrived in Hamilton in 2003.

OTD – 17 November 1974

HMCS PORTE DAUPHINE, originally commissioned in 1952, was recommissioned alongside STAR, after serving from 1958 to 1974 with the Coast Guard.  She served on the east coast for four years before transferring to the Pacific in 1978, being paid off  in 1995 after forty-three years service.

HMCS PORTE DAUPHINE

OTD – 15 November 1932

Ordinary Seaman David Oribine, V-8627, RCNVR of HMCS STAR was posted to HMS QUEBEC, the Combined Training Centre for amphibious operations, at Inveraray, Scotland. Following his participation in Operation TORCH, the invasion of North Africa, on 8 November 1942, he and various other Canadian landing craft crew were returning to Glasgow in the Troop Transport ETTRICK, when it was torpedoed and sunk off Gibraltar by U-155. The majority of the over three hundred crew and passengers were rescued but OS Oribine and twenty-three others were not.

David was the son of John & Katherine Oribine, 183 Catharine St N., Hamilton, and was 21.

Troop Transport ETTRICK, ex P&O liner

Pier Eight Progress

Development of Pier Eight, adjacent to HAIDA and HMCS STAR, continues, with the erection of a “faux” container handling gantry.

East face of Pier Eight, HAIDA’s gatehouse on the right.
From Pier Nine, astern of HAIDA, looking west towards Pier Eight.