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Former STAR officer honoured in Woodstock

Cdr (Ret’d) David Stock

A ceremony was held in Woodstock on Saturday, 28 September, to honour the late Commander (Retired) David Stock, who served as Executive Officer of HMCS STAR during 1971 and 1972. He subsequently went on to be instrumental in establishing a STAR detachment in London which was recommissioned as HMCS PREVOST in 1990.

The Woodstock Navy League building in South Side Park in Woodstock, home to RCSCC #153 Woodstock and NLCC Unicorn, was renamed the “Commander David J.B. Stock, QC, CD Centre” in his honour.

Rear Admiral Jennifer Bennett, herself a former STAR officer, was the reviewing officer. Other guests included Lt (Ret’d) Terry Meloche, a family friend, and Trevor Birtch, the Mayor of Woodstock.

A reception followed at the Oxford County Naval Veterans Association, normally known as the Woodstock Navy Club.

O Say Can You See?

HMS METEOR, the former HMS STARR rebuilt as a bomb vessel, and armed with a 13” and a 10” mortar, was one of five bomb vessels which took part in the bombardment of Fort McHenry at Baltimore, Maryland on September 12th and 13th, 1814.  Some of “the bombs bursting in air” that inspired Francis Scott Key to write The Star Spangled Banner came from METEOR

Another of the bomb vessels that took part in the bombardment of Fort McHenry was HMS TERROR, later stranded in the ice during the Franklin expedition of 1845 and only discovered in 2016 in the Canadian arctic.