Like many other Forum members, I have more than one hobby. One of the others is collecting old books.
I don't have the money to play the serious rare book game, but I like to buy cheap, out-of-print maritime and naval titles. I highly recommend the website www.bookfinder.com . Its prices are amazingly low - and they include shipping.
I decided I wanted to collect all the old Mr. Glencannon stories, by Guy Gilpatric. Any of you guys who've never read the Glencannon stories are missing a treat. Mr. Colin Glencannon was the chief engineer of a completely fictitious British tramp steamer, the S.S. Inchcliffe Castle, in the glory days of the old Saturday Evening Post. He and Mr. Montgomery, the mate, had a feud that lasted from the early thirties through WWII. The stories are hilariously funny. They take place on the sea and in seaports all over the world - wherever Mr. Glencannon can get hold of his beloved whiskey, Duggan's Dew of Kirkintiloch. (It's clear now that Glencannon was an alcoholic - but Post readers in the thirties and forties didn't see that as a problem.)
The easiest way to collect them is by way of the three "Omnibus" anthologies, so I went to Bookfinder and looked for them. I found a "good" copy of The Glencannon Omnibus, the first one, for about $8.00 - including shipping. When the book arrived I found, written neatly on the flyleaf:
Lieut. Hugh D. Davidson
HMCS "Chambly"
30th August/44
St. John's Nfld
Of course I immediately googled "hmcs chambly," and discovered that she was a pretty interesting ship. A Canadian-built Flower-class corvette, she had a highly active career on North Atlantic convoy duty. She made 31 escort voyages. In September of 1941, she and HMCS Moosejaw teemed up to sink the first U-boat claimed by the Royal Canadian Navy in the war. Here's a site apparently established by some of her veterans: http://www.forposterityssake.ca/Navy/HMCS_CHAMBLY_K116.htm . And here's her Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMCS_Chambly .
As an early (1940) "Flower," she was built with a short forecastle and the mast smack in front of the bridge. Later she was modified to the more effective "long forecastle" design, with up to date radar, much like HMS Snowberry.
Lieut. Davidson must have bought The Glencannon Omnibus, which had just been published, two days after the ship arrived in St. John's with Convoy ON 249, from Northern Ireland.
Freetime Hobbies says my new Revell 1/144 Flower-class corvette is on the way.
Any other Glencannon fans out there?