Joseph Victor Wilkins Veinotte was born in Ecum Secum, Guysborough County, on May 24, 1916. Nova Scotia’s Veinotte families trace their ancestry to Leopold Frederick Veinot, born on October 15, 1704, in Blamont, Principality of Montbéliard, France, near the Swiss border. The region was one of the few Protestant enclaves in France.
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The son of Jean Hori Veinot and Jeanne Masson, Leopold married Jeanne Melière, who was born in Blamont on October 18, 1704. The couple raised a family of eight children—five boys and three girls—all born in Blamont. On May 16, 1752, Leopold, Jean and their children departed from Rotterdam, Netherlands, aboard the ship Betty, destined for Halifax, NS..
The Veinots’ arrival in Nova Scotia was part of a British campaign to bring Protestant settlers to the colony, to counter-balance its mainly Roman Catholic Acadian population. Notices posted throughout central Europe attracted approximately 2,700 “foreign Protestants” from agricultural communities to the largely unsettled colony. The settlers came from three main areas—the Upper Rhine area of present-day Germany; French- and German-speaking Swiss cantons; and the French-speaking principality of Montbéliard.
In the spring of 1753, males old enough to qualify as landowners gathered in St. Paul’s Anglican Church, Halifax, where they drew for lots of land in a planned settlement near Lunenburg. Leopold received lots in the Moreau, Northwest and Third Divisions, and established his residence in the second location. He passed away there in 1783 at 80 years of age.
Christopher Jacques Veinot, one of Leopold and Jeanne’s five sons, married Elizabeth Catherine Robar in Lunenburg on April 13, 1761. Christopher Jacques and Elizabeth had at least three children—a daughter Catharine Elizabeth and two sons, James Frederick and Jean George—all born in Lunenburg. In 1800, James Frederick (1768 - 1843) married Mary Catherine Boucher (1785 - 1837) in Lunenburg.
Jacob Veinot (1809 - 1834), one of James Frederick and Mary’s sons, married Elizabeth Langille (1813 - 1891) in Lunenburg on October 6, 1831. The following year, their oldest child, John Frederick “Fred,” was born in Martin’s River, located between Chester and Mahone Bay, and relocated to Ecum Secum, Guysborough County, in the 1850s.
A lumberman and millwright by occupation, Fred married Elizabeth Ann “Annie” Fleet, daughter of David Fleet and Sarah Jewers, Ecum Secum, on January 24, 1859. The couple raised a large family of 13 children—10 daughters and three sons—in their home. Fred passed away in Ecum Secum on March 8, 1895, and was laid to rest in St. Barnabas Cemetery, Ecum Secum.
David Kenneth Veinotte, the third youngest of Fred and Annie’s children, was born in 1878. Kenneth married Mary Florence Ashton, daughter of Nathaniel Ashton, “trader,” and Mary Catherine Publicover, in a Church of England ceremony held in Ecum Secum on August 28, 1907. At the time of his marriage, Kenneth listed his occupation as “farmer.” He eventually opened a general store in Ecum Secum and later opened a funeral home business in the community. During the early years of the Second World War, Kenneth was the foreman in charge of the construction of Shearwater Air Force Base, Dartmouth.
Kenneth and Florence raised a family of six children, four sons and two daughters. At the time of the 1921 Canadian census, their household included Frederick “Fred,” age 13; David Roger, age 11; Mary Catherine, age eight; Victor, age five, and Anna Louisa “Annie,” age one. Kenneth’s mother Annie, age 83, also resided in the Veinotte home. Kenneth and Florence’s youngest child, Charles Stewart, was born before year’s end.
Victor Veinotte, the third of Kenneth and Florence’s four sons, left school at age 17 after completing eight years of public education. He then worked as a clerk in the “grocery store run by [his] father” in Ecum Secum. One year after the outbreak of war overseas, Victor enlisted with the Royal Canadian Navy at Halifax on August 8, 1940. As a result of his experience in retail business, Victor was awarded the initial rank of V. A. [VIctualling Assistant] Prob. [Probationary],” a branch of the naval service responsible for the provision of food and other stores aboard its vessels.
On November 7, 1940, Victor was promoted to the full rank of Victualling Assistant (VA). Before month’s end, he was assigned to HMCS Venture, a three-masted training ship used as an accommodation vessel in Halifax Harbour. The New Year brought another significant event in Victor’s life. On January 30, 1941, he married Irma May Pace, daughter of Harold Pace, Marie Joseph, and May Baker, in a ceremony held in Trinity Church, Halifax.
Victor remained in Halifax for almost two years. On July 18, 1941, he was assigned to HMCS Stadacona, Halifax, the RCN’s main base. Four months later, he was promoted to the rank of Leading VA. During that time, Victor and Irma’s first child, a son, was born. Irma was pregnant with their second child, a daughter, when Victor was posted to HMCS Niobe, the RCN’s United Kingdom headquarters, on November 5, 1942. He travelled to the RCN base at St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, aboard HMCS Orillia, and departed for overseas aboard HMS Monkshood, a British Navy corvette.
On February 4, 1943, Victor was assigned to the crew of HMCS Athabaskan. Commissioned at Newcastle-on-Tyne on February 3, 1943, the Athabaskan was the first of three RCN ships to bear this name. A tribal-class destroyer, assigned to the British Home Fleet, the vessel suffered a number of mishaps during its brief time in service. Four months after joining the Athabaskan’s crew, Victor was promoted to the rank of Supply Petty Officer.
In late March 1943, the Athabaskan commenced active duty, patrolling the area between Iceland and the Faroe Islands in search of “blockade runners.” Heavy seas encountered during the assignment damaged the vessel’s hull, resulting in a five-week repair job in a South Shields dry dock, east of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
Shortly after returning to duty, the Athabaskan was assigned to Operation Gearbox III. The undertaking was the third mission connected to an Allied effort to secure the Arctic island of Spitsbergen, located in the Barents Sea, north of Scandinavia. After the outbreak of war, German forces had occupied the island, which contained valuable coal deposits.
The first two operations, joint Norwegian and British efforts, established an Allied presence the island. The third mission transported reinforcements and supplies to the garrison stationed there. Several ships departed from Iceland on June 7. As the Athabaskan made its way northward from the UK to join its comrades, the ship collided with a boom defence vessel at Scape Flow, Orkney Islands, on June 18. The incident forced the destroyer to sail to Devonport, where it remained under repair for one month.
Upon returning to sea, the Athabaskan operated out of Plymouth, UK, conducting anti-submarine patrols in the Bay of Biscay, north of Spain and west of France, throughout the summer months. On August 27, the destroyer was engaged in an anti-submarine pursuit off Cape Ortegal, Spain, when a squadron of 18 Dornier Do 217 enemy aircraft attacked its Support Group.
The planes carried under their wings a new weapon deployed in combat for the first time only two days earlier—the Henschel Hs 293 glide bomb, a radio-guided weapon equipped with a small rocket engine. The aircraft launched the weapon at a distance from its targets sufficient to avoid retaliatory fire.
During the aerial attack, a glide bomb passed through the Athabaskan’s hull and detonated after exiting the vessel. While the ship was heavily damaged in the attack, it remained afloat. The British sloop HMS Egret, also targeted in the same incident, was not so fortunate. A glide bomb sunk the vessel, resulting in the loss of 198 lives. In response, Allied naval commanders immediately suspended the Bay of Biscay patrols.
The Athabaskan suffered four fatalities and several casualties in the August 27 incident. The vessel nevertheless pulled 35 Egret survivors from the water and managed to make its way to Devonport, UK, for repairs, despite a serious list to starboard. Before year’s end, the ship was back at sea.
In December 1943, the destroyer returned to the Orkneys and escorted convoy JW55A to the Soviet Union. The ship arrived to Plymouth in February 1944 and was assigned to the newly-formed 10th Destroyer Flotilla. The group commenced mine-laying and patrol missions off the coast of France as Allied forces began preparations for the D-Day landings.
On April 26, the Athabaskan assisted in the destruction of a German Elbing-Class torpedo boat while on patrol off the coast of Ushant, France. During the early morning hours of April 29, 1944, the Athabaskan and her sister Tribal-class destroyer Haida were providing support to a British mine-laying operation near the mouth of the Morlaix River, France, when the vessels received orders to intercept German warships near Île Bataz, at the entrance to Morlaix harbour.
There are varying accounts of the naval battle that ensued, as the encounter occurred under cover of darkness. Some members of the Athabaskan’s crew claim that the ship was first struck by shells from a German shore battery, followed by a torpedo launched from German torpedo boat T24. Another sailor claimed that a second torpedo struck the ship 15 minutes later, but naval authorities eventually concluded that a fire aboard the ship caused an explosion in its ammunition magazine.
The Haida managed to rescue 44 of the Athabaskan’s crew as the vessel slipped beneath the waters. Another 83 men were taken prisoner by three German minesweepers that searched the area after the Haida’s departure. A total of 129 crew members perished in the sinking. Among them was the Athabaskan’s Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Commander John Stubbs, who was killed in action after declining rescue by the Haida and swimming back toward the ship to assist surviving crew members.
While approaching daylight forced the Haida to depart the area, due to heightened risk of air and sea attack, its motor cutter remained at the site of the sinking. Manned by four crew members, the small vessel managed to rescue six Athabaskan survivors and two Haida crew members who had fallen from its scramble nets as the destroyer departed. While the German minesweepers initially pursued the motor cutter, they eventually abandoned the chase. After several breakdowns and encounters with enemy aircraft, the boat safely made it to the UK just before midnight April 29.
On May 1, 1944, Canadian naval authorities wrote to Irma, informing her that her husband, Supply Petty Officer Joseph Victor Wilkins Veinotte, was missing:
“According to the report received from overseas, your husband’s loss occurred when HMCS Athabaskan was torpedoed and sunk by enemy action on the 29th of April, 1944, in the English Channel…. While Petty Officer Veinotte is reported as ‘missing,’ there is a possibility of his survival. It is understood that a number of the crew have been taken prisoner of war by the enemy. The Red Cross have been informed and are attempting to obtain from the German Government a list of those taken. Please be assured that as soon as any information respecting your husband has been received you will be informed.”
Irma received no further word from authorities until January 12, 1945, when she was notified that her husband was now officially considered “missing, reported dead” on April 29, 1944. Two months later, Canadian authorities dispatched a War Memorial Cross to Irma at Marie Joseph and a second to Victor’s mother May Florence, who resided in nearby Ecum Secum.
Supply Petty Officer Victor Veinotte and his Athabaskan comrades are commemorated on the Halifax Memorial, erected in Point Pleasant Park, Halifax, in 1967 in memory of more than 3,000 sailors, merchant seamen and other military personnel who perished at sea during the two world wars and Korean conflict, and have no known graves.
In 2002, Jacques Ouchakoff, a French marine historian, located the shattered remains of the Athabaskan scattered over the sea bed in 90 meters of water near Île de Batz. The government of France subsequently placed the wreck under the authority of the French Heritage Code, providing legal protection for the vessel and its contents. Two years after the wreck’s discovery, the Royal Canadian Navy provided the French government with a brass plaque to be placed on the wreckage, in commemoration of its lost crew members.
Two of Irma Veinotte’s brothers enlisted for service during the Second World War. Earl Stillman Pace joined the merchant marine. Shipwrecked twice during the war, he survived both incidents. Gordon Amos Pace enlisted with the North Nova Scotia Regiment. Wounded during combat in the Netherlands, he also safely returned home.
Victor’s father David Kenneth Veinotte passed away in Armdale, Halifax, NS, on March 28, 1957, and was laid to rest in Ecum Secum. In 1948, Irma Veinotte and her two young children relocated to Windsor, ON, where Irma initially worked on a local assembly line. Determined to improve her situation, she completed several training programs and earned a position with the local taxation center.
Several years later, Revenue Canada offered Irma the opportunity to relocate to Ottawa for a year to work on a project. She moved to the national capital and spent the rest of her years there, eventually earning a managerial position with the department. Irma never re-married and passed away in Ottawa on June 10, 2019. Her ashes were “taken to Nova Scotia to be interred in the family cemetery.”
Special thanks to Victor's son Dennis Veinotte, Arnprior, ON, who provided information on the Veinotte family's story, and Dennis's son Victor, Ottawa, ON, who contributed a photograph of his grandfather and namesake.
