Lieutenant Bernard John Kennedy, RCNVR, aged 23, who enlisted at HMCS STAR in November 1941, and who had served on the lower deck on convoy duty during 1942, was killed in a flying accident in a Grumman Avenger Mk II while training with 763 Naval Air Squadron (Anti-submarine Operational Training) at HMS Nightjar, RNAS Inskip in Lancashire.
He was the son of John and Maggie Kennedy of Ferguson Avenue North in Hamilton and graduated from Cathedral High School before working at National Steel Car.
The RCNVR & RCNR were merged into RCN(R). The wavy stripes of the RCNVR and the woven stripes of the RCNR were replaced with the straight stripes of the RCN.
The corvette CHILLIWACK, K-131, while part of Mid Ocean Escort Group C1 for convoy ONS 154 from Liverpool to New York, shares in the sinking of the Type VII-C U-boat, U-356, north of the Azores. CHILLIWACK was instrumental in sinking a second submarine, U-744, on 6 March 1944. She was broken up at STELCO in Hamilton in 1946 and her mast found its way to STAR’s quarterdeck.
