The Second World War never really left Jim Kilner.
“I kind of put it behind me as much as I could,” Kilner, now 88, told KTW.
“Sure, I still thought about it, I still think of it once in a while now. I still think of what went on and the guys that we lost on the boats and so forth.
“I still think about it, even today I’ll think about it. Especially when I’m going to sleep, I’ll think about all the days we were there.
“It never ever quite leaves me.”
Kilner came home after an eight-month stint in Europe with the Canadian Navy, sailing the English channel and North Sea in the dead of winter.
And, when he did, life went back to being as normal as it could be.
“It wasn’t actually at all difficult,” he said.
“It didn’t seem to be hard to adjust to coming home again. It was over, so it was over. To me, that’s the way it was.”
Kilner returned to Canadian soil on survivor’s leave — his ship one of a dozen destroyed in the 1945 accidental fire and explosion in Belgium’s Ostend harbour, which killed 62 sailors. At the time, he was under the impression he would return to the war eventually and had even signed up to join Canada’s sailors in the Pacific.
But, the war ended on both sides of the world before his leave came to an end.
Though his time overseas was cut short by the Ostend harbour disaster, Kilner had seen the war, been a part of it.
He has memories of his time in the North Sea, mostly of being chilled to the bone, soaked by the water splashing on the decks as his ship bobbed in huge sea swells.
Even now, about 70 years later, the memories still come flooding back, though he says they’re not overly troubling.
The war has left its mark on Kilner, physically, as well as emotionally.
He coughs often, the result of exposure to asbestos, which was used to line the insides of the Navy’s ships.
Under his right eye, a dark speck is clearly visible. Its not a scar, but a piece of shrapnel that still sits under his skin. He calls it his war medal.
His hearing isn’t as good as it once was.
Yes, the Second World War changed Kilner — but, even still, coming home was never traumatic, it just made life return to normal.
“I would’t say it really troubles me or bothers me,” he said.
“But, I do remember it all the time and it does come back to me a lot of the time.”
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