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A Royal Canadian Navy Historical Project
In memory of those who have Crossed the Bar
KEARNEY, George Alfred - who commenced his naval career as an ordinary seaman in 1943 and served during the Second World War and following hostilities passed away in Thunder Bay, ON Aug 17 at age 93. During the war he served as a coder in Canada, the North Atlantic and the UK in HMC Ships and shore establishments Niobe, Leaside, Stone Town, Peregrine and Gloucester. He was commissioned in 1950 through the UNTD at the University of Manitoba and served in HMCS Ontario (1951-52); Great Lakes Training Centre, Hamilton; and HMCS Prestonian (1953-54) before returning to his home division HMCS Griffon, Thunder Bay. In civilian life he was a high school history teacher and active in a number of military support and community organizations including the Royal Canadian Legion (Meritorious Service Medal 2009), Naval Officers Association of Canada, the Canadian Naval Memorial Trust, Royal Canadian Naval Association, Gyro Club and the Thunder Bay Historical Museum. Survivors include his wife Vera, children George, Geoffrey and Joel, and a number of grandchildren. (Action Stations! Canada's Naval Memorial Magazine Vol 36 - Issue 1, Spring 2017)
Ships served in: HMCS ONTARIO - Served in Ontario 1951-1952 HMCS PRESTONIAN - Served in Prestonian 1953-1954
U-244 Flying the black flag of surrender. Photos taken from HMCS Stone Town by George Kearney
George Kearney's entry on U-244 from - The Memory Project - Well, on the last convoy, we left Londonderry on the 12th of May, 1945. On the 13th of May, we sighted a surface submarine, the U244, flying the black flag of surrender. There was an aircraft overhead, and a Royal Navy frigate on the horizon coming up. I can recall one of the officers hollering to the gunnery people who had apparently turned the 2 4-inch guns on the submarine to get the guns back aligned fore and aft. Because the submarine was pointing at us, so if anything had gone wrong, they could’ve fired torpedoes. That stands out in my mind, and I have a couple of pictures I took of that. You weren’t supposed to have a camera, and I had one, and I got a few pictures. Couple of them, three of them, of the submarine in the distance.
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For Posterity's Sake 
