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‘My father’s war finally ended,’ Sault man says (4 photos)

Robert Wrona participated in Sunday’s March for a Veteran event in honour of father Louis Wrona

Robert Wrona was among over 60 Sault and area residents who took part in the March for a Veteran event before the annual Remembrance Day ceremony at GFL Memorial Gardens Sunday morning, marching in honour of his veteran father Louis Wrona.

“I’m very proud of my father because as a young man, he left his job and did his part in the Second World War and said ‘I’ve got a responsibility to fight a threat against Canada’ instead of saying ‘let somebody else do it,’” Wrona said, sharing memories of his father with SooToday.

“People like my father were from a community growing up in Bayview...and the platform these people created, putting their lives at risk to ensure a way of life for us and to make things better, we shouldn’t forget that or abuse those gifts they gave us.”

“Can you imagine? If our enemies had arrived on our shores we would not be who we are today, or maybe not even be here at all.”

Louis Wrona, born in 1922, was working at Algoma Steel when he decided to enlist with the Royal Canadian Navy.

He served as a stoker onboard a corvette, which escorted merchant ships carrying munitions and supplies across the North Atlantic to the United Kingdom for the Allied war effort.

Wrona recalled his father would often say ‘there’s no glory in war.’

“As a stoker (fuelling a ship’s furnace) you’re in the bowels of the ship. It’s extremely hot and very dangerous. My Dad would say if the ship was hit the metal would buckle and all hatches would seize, you wouldn’t be able to get out. That was one of the fears of a stoker.”

“Everybody was afraid, but you did your job, you did what you had to do.”

Wrona said he had the opportunity to tour a preserved corvette in Halifax, getting a firsthand look at the catwalks located only a few feet away from hot, noisy engines which also put out a strong smell of gasoline.

“I can just imagine standing beside a hot engine, and all hatches having to be closed in an emergency (along with, of course, the danger of being torpedoed by an enemy submarine or bombed by an enemy plane).”

“He said you were always afraid of being sealed in this coffin, but he did what he had to do.”

In contrast to the heat stokers faced down below, Wrona said his father also experienced the bitter cold on the ship’s deck in the North Atlantic winters.

“It was like an ice castle. You had to have sledge hammers to hammer the ice off the decks, otherwise the ship would get too heavy and overturn.”

“You were always doing something and at sea for weeks at a time.”

The war left Louis Wrona disabled, honourably discharged from the navy as ‘medically unfit,’ unable to return to his job at Algoma Steel when the war ended.

“He had severe arthritis, caused by extreme cold that gets straight to your bones. He went into the war at 21 years of age and healthy and he came out a broken man. He walked with canes.”

Because he always knew his father as being disabled, Wrona said he too “grew up with the war.”

Wrona said he remembers helping his father to get dressed.

“I would have done that, helped him, for another 100 years if I could have.”

As time went by, Louis Wrona had to leave the Sault, admitted to Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital Veterans Centre.

On Sept. 20, 1996, Robert was in Toronto on business when he visited his father at the veterans centre.

“He was in a lot of pain, and said ‘I want to go home.’ I kissed him on his forehead and promised I would take him home.”

However, Louis Wrona passed away that same day at the age of 74.

While Louis Wrona was unable to return to his Sault home, Robert Wrona said “that (his passing away) was when his war finally ended.”

Sunday marked Wrona’s first time marching for a veteran.

March for a Veteran is an original Royal Canadian Legion Branch 25 initiative, an opportunity for a family member, or a member of the public, to honour a veteran (anyone who has served or is serving with the Canadian Armed Forces or the RCMP).

A family member or friend may march for a veteran who is deceased, ill or too frail to take part in the Remembrance Day march from the Gardens to the Cenotaph in front of the Sault Ste. Marie Courthouse and back, or for someone unable to attend because he or she is currently deployed with the Forces elsewhere in Canada or abroad. One does not have to be a Royal Canadian Legion member to march.


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Darren Taylor

About the Author: Darren Taylor

Darren Taylor is a news reporter and photographer in Sault Ste Marie. He regularly covers community events, political announcements and numerous board meetings. With a background in broadcast journalism, Darren has worked in the media since 1996.
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