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April 2001 West Vancouver Historical Society Page 5 YOUR LETTERS (Contd.) WEST VANCOUVER HISTORICAL SOCIETY NEXT GENERAL MEETING WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25, 2001 at 7:00 pm At the Seniors' Activity Centre, 695- 21st Street, West Vancouver Speaker - Fred Carey Topic - SEE THE ’’SPARCS” FLY! AND A DATE FOR YOU TO REMEMBER WEDNESDAY, JUNE 27TH, 2001 THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF YOUR SOCIETY & ANOTHER DATE TO REMEMBER -JUNE 1st, 2001 WEST VANCOUVER’S COMMUNITY DAY This year the theme is -Wind and Water Try to catch the Parade - it is always a lot of fun and your Society will, as usual, be taking part. ieieitititicitftit Heritage Activities (Contd.) Some of the other activities which took place were -Snowboarding on Hollybum, with lots of family fun; the West Van Legion, Branch 60, celebrating its 75th birthday; a video honouring the Queen Mother from her visit here in 1939 to the tea for her 100th birthday held last sununer; photos in the Ferry Building of West Van's early days plus a "Glimpses" exhibition by WV artist Jean Greenwood; a Lions Gate Bridge video; "Horizons" (a quilt display) and lots of photo exhibits throughout the municipality. All in all it was a great Heritage ceelbration. And a letter from Thomas C. Marshall with further details concerning Don Graham's recent talk on the Shelling of Estevan Point Lighthouse. "Shelling of Lighthouse, 1942. I was 50 or so miles north, serving as a junior Sub-Lieut. in HMCS Dawson, a corvette. We were en route to Victoria after a month of patrolling Hecate Strait, keeping close watch by Sonar for Japanese submarines which our shore people seemed to think posed a real threat to the West Coast. I was on watch from 8 p.m. to midnight when we received orders to proceed at best possible speed (16-17 knots) to the vicinity of Estevan lighthouse. 1 recall something about the lighthouse being attacked from sea. We were all of course quite excited but it appeared to be a false alarm since when we arrived in the vicinity all was quiet. 1 don't recall if the lighthouse was on or out. We proceeded to Victoria and for several days we all heard many rumours. After the war 1 learned from an old friend who had been, 1 believe. First Lieut, of HMCS Vancouver, that a freighter had been torpedoed in the Strait of Juan de Fuca about the same time. They attempted to take her under tow but the towline parted and it was a US tug that raced over and succeeded, much to the chagrin of the Vancouver's crew who no doubt saw potential salvage rewards plucked from their grasp!" During that Spring 1 had also served a short period training members of the Fishermen's Reserve at William Head. One of their Skippers later told me he had seen a Japanese sub surface near the mouth of one of the inlets. He claimed to have tried to lure the sub over a submerged rock but the sub-commander must have had good charts because it submerged and nothing more was seen of it. Thankfully, no shots were fired as the sub would have outgunned the fish packer by at least 100 to 1! 1 never heard any reports of enemy surface ships operating offshore although the Battle of Midway apparently gave rise to much speculation, and the State ofWashington had been attacked with incendiaries in an attempt to set the forest ablaze. Whether this was by aircraft or ship Ido not know. Nothing in the foregoing must be taken as a rebuttal of our speaker's paper. It was the first time I had heard the story of the Japanese shell with some words in English on the casing. The comments of the lighthouse keeper were also interesting. It was, after all, night-time but with reasonable visibility, and the moonlight or starlight can perform great tricks on the human eye with even a moderate sea I can recall my mother, then in her sixties, while taking the ferry to West Van., seeing what she was quite sure was a periscope near the Lions Gate Bridge. No one could convince her it was probably a deadhead log. It is interesting that we have no logbook from the sub. to establish the truth. 1 believe it was later sunk?" Thank you Thomas for sharing your memories with us. What stirring times they were. Will we ever know the exact truth of that evaitful night in 1942? !