BANK ROBBERY

 The Great Shearwater Bank Robbery

& The Guard of Eastern Passage

In the early 1960s at HMCS Shearwater, The Bank of Montreal was located on the Main Road, about half a mile from the Main Gate. The week after it was robbed, I was assigned to shore patrol. Six of us were marched to the armoury, where we were issued Sterling submachine guns and sidearms. Our mission was to escort the Paymaster—a Lieutenant—down to the bank and back to the base. We looked formidable, "armed to the teeth," but there was one catch: we weren't allowed to have any bullets. We were strictly for show.

Later, I served on a salvage crew. Whenever a Banshee jet crashed, we were ordered to simply dig a hole and bury the wreckage. We never dug very deep, knowing the local fishermen from Eastern Passage would likely come by later to dig it up for salvage.

However, when a helicopter went down just outside Eastern Passage, the Navy decided it was fixable. This time, the security was real. Two of us had to stay in a tent beside the aircraft overnight to guard it. Unlike our bank escort duty, we were issued Sten guns with full magazines—this time, we were prepared to hold the line against the local scavengers