241896 Lt. Leonard Haydon Taylor Canadian Expeditionary Force 16th (Canadian Scottish) Btn. from:Vancouver From my grandfather, Leonard Taylor's memoirs:
"I commanded the Signal Section for quite a long while, when, unfortunatelty I took sick with nephritis which affected the kidneys. I was moved out of the frontal area, and was sent to hospital. This was where I met the girl I eventually married, Ruth Dawn. (Lieutenant Ruth Dawn, Canadian Military Medical Corps, operating room nurse serving in Le Treport France). When I left this hospital (Le Treport) I was transported by hospital train to LeHavre, and was loaded onto a hospital ship, the Lanfranc. I was dressed in pyjamas and dressing gown. Soon afterwards a hospital orderly woke me up and asked permission to put on a lifebelt, we having left port some time back. I should explain that I was in a lower berth in the cabin, and opposite me, in the other berth, was a British officer, who had had his foot off. To make matters short, the ship was torpedoed out of the sight of land. I woke up and looked out into the passage to see if any help was coming, and when I could see that there was none, I asked the other chap whether he could walk with my help. I got him up on deck where the crew were putting everybody into the lifeboats. By this time the ship was stopped and she was rolling from side to side. One could try and drop into a lifeboat as it hit the ship's side, and there was an attempt apparently to lower it into the water. By some mishap, however, one end of the boat was lowered and the other remained stationary, plunging all of us unfortunate men into the sea, many feet below. The group of men stayed together, although the sinking ship was drifting further and further away from us. It was now getting dark, and I, for one, thought I was a goner. But some distance away there was a British destroyer, which lowered lifeboats. One of the sailors leaned over the bow and picked me out of the water by the scruff of my neck. That was the last I remember until I woke up on the deck of the destroyer.
Eventually another sailor, noticing I was just shivering with the cold, brought me a glass of rum and took me down to the engine roon, where it was warmer. We landed at Southampton and I was taken to Netley Hospital, where I was put to bed, with a pair of dry pyjamas etc. Although nephritis was dangerous to the kidneys and I was supposed to avoid catching cold, I suffered no ill effects from my mishap.
Upon being discharged from the hospital I was sent up to London for a medical board. The doctors were more interested in my experience in being torpedoed, and one asked me how much leave I would like to have, and he gave me a month. I had lost all of my kit in the water of course, and the people at military headquarters gave me a new kit allowance. After completing my leave I went to Tidworth where the reserve company of my regiment was. There I was given command of the Company of Signallers."
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