Merchant Seaman Joseph Étienne Cottreau—Perished at Sea May 21, 1942

 Joseph Étienne Cottreau was born at Wedgeport, Yarmouth County, on September 2, 1904, the son of Arthur Xavier and Ada Hélène (Doucet) Cottreau. Arthur and Hélène married at Tusket Wedge on June 4, 1901. Their first child, a daughter Marie Cécile, was born in 1902, but passed away four years later. Joseph was the couple’s second child.

Joseph Cottreau's Name on the Halifax Memorial, Point Pleasant Park

Before the end of the decade, three more children—two girls and a boy—joined the Cottreau family. While Anne Louise (DOB November 13, 1905) and John Roger (DOB August 3, 1907) lived into adulthood, the youngest child—Hélène Cecilia, born on October 17, 1909—passed away at age five months. Even more tragic was the death of the children’s mother Ada Hélène, who died two and a half weeks after Hélène Cecilia’s birth.

Left with four young children to raise, Arthur took up residence at Wedgeport with his younger brother George, his wife Emily Beatrice, and their son Louis Henry. While Arthur and Joseph—Arthur’s oldest surviving child—were living with George and Emily at the time of the 1911 Canadian census, Joseph’s two younger siblings are not present in the home, suggesting that they had been taken in by relatives in the community.

Arthur earned a living at sea, an occupation that took him to various ports along Nova Scotia’s Atlantic coast. Some time after his wife’s passing, Arthur visited the busy fishing port of Canso, where he met Mary Rose “Rosie” Boudrot, a native of Petit-de-Grat, Richmond County. Rosie was also a widow, having married Fred Manuel, a native of Canso, in 1902. Fred’s sudden passing in 1910 at age 42, left Rosie with four young children—two sons and two daughters—to raise on her own.

On October 18, 1914, Arthur and Rosie were married in a ceremony held at Canso. The couple’s only child, a daughter Mamie Louise, was born the following year. Joseph also relocated to Canso with his father. At the time of the 1921 census, Arthur and Mamie’s home included six children, five of whom were from their previous marriages. The eldest, Joseph, had already joined his father at sea, where the pair earned a living as fishermen.

As the years passed, Joseph left Canso to work aboard merchant vessels. During that time, Arthur and Rose appear to have relocated to Wedgeport, where 61-year-old Arthur passed away from acute nephritis at Yarmouth Hospital, Yarmouth, on October 27, 1934. Rosie may have returned to the Canso area following Arthur’s death, as her daughter Mamie married Richard Edgar Hanlon at Star of the Sea Roman Catholic Church, Canso, on November 3, 1926.

By 1942, Joseph had joined the Canadian merchant marine and was employed as a watchman aboard the Canadian cargo ship SS Torondoc. Built at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK, in 1927, for Paterson Steamships Ltd., Fort William, Ontario, the vessel had operated on the Great Lakes, transporting grain, coal and pulpwood, until 1941, at which time the Canadian government requisitioned the vessel for war service with the Canadian Merchant Navy.

SS Torondoc (unknown location)

 

Under the command of Captain François Xavier Daneau, SS Torondoc carried a crew of 22, including its master. On the morning of May 21, 1942, the unescorted vessel was located 60 miles northwest of the Caribbean island of Martinique, en route from the Virgin Islands to Trinidad. At the time, its cargo consisted of bauxite, an ore used in the production of aluminum. At least 10 of its merchant seamen were Canadian—seven from Quebec, two from Ontario and one—Joseph Cottreau—from Nova Scotia. Nine others were natives of the colony of British Guiana, located on the northern coast of South America.
 
At 7:53 am May 21, German U-boat U-69, under the command of Kapitänleutnant Ulrich Gräf, surfaced and fired a torpedo, striking the Torondoc amidships. As the vessel went under, some of its crew were able to abandon ship, launching four lifeboats and two rafts. The German vessel surfaced, questioned survivors and then departed, leaving the crew to their fate. None survived their ordeal at sea.

Halifax Memorial, Point Pleasant Park

38-year-old Watchman Joseph Étienne Cottreau was one of the 22 merchant seamen who perished in the aftermath of the Torondoc’s sinking. His name is engraved on the Halifax Memorial, Point Pleasant Park, Halifax, alongside those of his Canadian crew mates.