Vice-Admiral Harry George DeWolf, CBE, DSO, DSC, CD

1903 - 2000

Vice-Admiral Harry DeWolf was born in Bedford, Nova Scotia in 1903 and joined the Royal Canadian Navy as a cadet in 1918 to attend the Royal Naval College of Canada in Esquimalt, British Columbia. From 1921 until 1925, he conducted his training with the Royal Navy on the battleship Her Majesty’s Ship (HMS) Resolution followed by training courses with the Royal Navy, as well as service at sea with the Royal Navy and the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN). In 1928, he specialized in navigation, attending the Long Navigation Course at HMS Dryad in England, followed by further seagoing and staff appointments with both the Royal Navy and the RCN.

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Lieutenant-Commander Margaret Martha Brooke, MBE

1915 - 2016

Margaret Martha Brooke enrolled as a Nursing Sister Dietician on March 9, 1942 at the rank of Sub-Lieutenant. She was promoted to the rank of A/Lt on July 1, 1946, then to Lieutenant (Navy) on January 1, 1948 and finally to Lieutenant-Commander on April 1, 1957. She served in the Royal Canadian Navy from 1942 to 1962.

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Chief Petty Officer Max Leopold Bernays

1910 - 1974

Chief Petty Officer Bernays was born in Vancouver, BC in 1910.  He joined the merchant marine at an early age, later in the 1930s serving with Canadian National Steamships. In 1929 he joined the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve (RCNVR) and was mobilized for the Second World War in 1939.

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Petty Officer William Hall, VC

1829 - 1904

William Hall (baptized William Neilson), sailor and farmer; b. 25 April 1829 in Nova Scotia, possibly in Horton Bluff (Lockhartville), one of several children of Jacob and Lucinda Hall; d. unmarried 25 Aug. 1904 in Avonport, N.S.

William Hall grew up on the banks of the Avon River. His father, one of the black refugees brought to Nova Scotia during the War of 1812, became a sailor and worked at the shipbuilding yards at Half-Way River (Hantsport). In 1844 young William joined the crew of a vessel sailing out of Half-Way River, and during the late 1840s he apparently served in the American navy. Hall enlisted in the Royal Navy as an able seaman in February 1852, and he was in the battleship Rodney for four years. During the Crimean War he took part in the siege of Sevastopol (Ukraine) as the captain of a gun in the siege batteries, and he was present at the battle of Inkerman. In 1856 he was assigned to the frigate Shannon.

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Lieutenant Robert Hampton Gray, VC DSC

On August 10, 2020, the Government of Canada announced that the Royal Canadian Navy’s (RCN) sixth Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ship (AOPS) will be named in honour of Lieutenant (Lt) Robert Hampton Gray, a Canadian naval hero of the Second World War.

Lt Gray joined the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve in 1940 and served as a pilot in the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm. He embarked in His Majesty’s Ship (HMS) Formidable with 1841 Squadron, joining the war in the Pacific as part of Operation ICEBERG, the invasion of Okinawa, Japan, in April 1945.

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