| Unit # | 10th Destroyer Squadron |
Of Wheatley, ON. A sailor on HMCS Huron (G24) a Tribal Class destroyer, part of the 10th Destroyer Squadron during WWII. Stafford sailed out of Scapa Flow on 1/10/43 as part of the convoy escort going on the ‘Murmansk Run’ to Russia. 26/04/1944 HMCS Athabaskan, Haida and Huron intercepted three German torpedo boats off the coast of France. In a fierce gun battle the three Canadian ships sank the German flotilla leader T-29. The other two German vessels escaped but in a damaged condition.
At the end of the war HMCS Huron returned to Halifax and berthed beside her sister ship HMCS Haida which was also in the Arctic run. As the Huron approached Haida a voice called out “Hey Wheatley!” it was Jack Cobby another sailor from Wheatley.
On 9/12/1988 at the Oxford County Naval Veterans Association in Woodstock, ON. Stafford was presented with the Russian Jubilee Medal by Igor Laiken Frolor, from the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa for his service on the ‘Murmansk Run’.
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