Eighty years to the day that he served as a navigator aboard a frigate off the coast of France fending off German submarines for the D-Day invasion, the life of the late Peter Godwin Chance was celebrated in Christ Church Cathedral.
The funeral for Chance, who died April 9 at 103, drew hundreds to the cathedral and a Royal Canadian Legion celebration that followed.
It was a grand sendoff for a man who spent 30 years in active service aboard 13 ships, took part in the Dunkirk evacuations and the D-Day landings, and served in Korea.
Chance survived the sinking of the HMCS Skeena in the North Atlantic and spent the Second World War supporting troops and supply caravans amid lurking enemy submarines.
The ceremony paid homage to his career with music by the CFB Naden Band, a navy honour guard and bosun’s and bugle calls that were a familiar part of Chance’s life at sea.
A soloist sang Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Crossing the Bar, a traditional farewell in the navy, and there was a flypast with vintage aircraft.
Chance was remembered as a dedicated navy man and a good friend with a quick sense of humour who put people at ease.
“Dad would have been over the moon to see everyone who has turned out in this gorgeous cathedral to remember him,” Simon Chance, Peter’s son and a retired RCMP staff sergeant, said in his eulogy.
“He spent a lifetime cultivating friendships with a creative and theatrical attitude. He would always say his motto was ‘you can attract more with honey than vinegar,’ and ‘for goodness sake, be kind.’ ”
Raised by a stern army father who fought in the First World War and a mother who was a teacher with a fondness for music and humour, Peter Chance inherited those traits in raising his own family, said Simon Chance.
Chance’s last days were happy and busy, spent socializing with and entertaining his fellow residents and staff at a Peninsula retirement home that he referred to with humour as “the barracks – where the grub was good, the staff delightful and the inmates friendly.”
He was quick to pour glasses of Scotch for friends and walk over to the Rumrunner Pub for gab sessions, and was known to get on the piano in the lobby at the Sidney retirement home, though front-desk staff had to tell him to turn down the volume at times.
Simon Chance read an email he received from a resident there who said Peter Chance “chose to live a life of joy … and he offered that joy to anyone who cared to hear.”
Rev. Denise Doerksen of Holy Trinity Anglican Church where Chance always attended Sunday services, said Chance had “life-bringing conversations” with people he met. After receiving the Eucharist, “we smiled when he returned to his pew lifting his arms saying ‘I’m still alive!’ ”
Lt.‑Cmdr. RCN (Ret’d) Paul Seguna, a long-time friend, said Chance was gregarious and wore his rank lightly. “He was a real navy gentleman in the old style.”
Seguna said of the estimated 7,000 remaining veterans of the Second World War, only about 100 Royal Canadian Navy veterans of the Battle of the Atlantic remain — and very few would have been among the 10,000 sailors aboard the 124 ships, torpedo boats and landing craft that sailed to the coast of France during Operation Neptune to support the D-Day landings.
In 2021, Chance cut the ribbon on the CFB Esquimalt Museum’s Battle of the Atlantic gallery, which bears his name. Last year, the retired naval commander, who learned to fly in his early navy years, returned to the sky with a pilot from the Victoria Flying Club, taking the controls after takeoff to become the oldest Second World War veteran to pilot an aircraft for more than an hour.
Chance’s 100-year-old brother, John, who commanded a Fairmile motor launch during the war, patrolling the the east coast and Gulf of St. Lawrence, watched the livestream funeral service from his home in Oakville, Ont.
Peter Chance began his naval career with the Ottawa Naval Reserve Division, HMCS Carleton, in 1938. He joined his first ship, HMCS St. Laurent, in September 1939, days after the Second World War began.
That launched a long naval career on ships ranging from frigates and destroyers to cruisers, battleships and aircraft carriers in various theatres of conflict, including the evacuation of Singapore in 1941. He later saw service in the Yellow Sea during the Korean War.
He went from midshipman to commander of a frigate and destroyer in Canada’s post-war navy. He also held senior staff positions ashore in Canada, the U.K. and U.S.
Chance published his autobiography, A Sailor’s Life, in 2001. Among his many decorations and awards is the French Legion of Honour presented to him in recognition of his service during the D-Day landings.
Today, on June 6 at 11 a.m. — the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings — Doerksen will lead an interment ceremony at the Columbarium at God’s Acre Veterans Cemetery in Esquimalt.
