Sergeant Phillip Safire, Great, Great, Great Nephew of William Hall, VC, sails on HMCS William Hall
By Capt Kylie Penney
His Majesty’s Canadian Ship (HMCS) William Hall, the fourth Harry DeWolf-class Arctic Offshore Patrol Vessel, was named after the great naval hero William Hall -the first Black person, the first Nova Scotian, and the third Canadian to receive the British Empire’s highest award for bravery, the Victoria Cross (VC).
Recently, Sergeant (Sgt) Phillip Safire, the great, great, great nephew of William Hall, joined HMCS William Hall on its sail from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Key West, Florida, as the vessel prepared to support Operation CARIBBE 25-02.
Sgt Safire is a reservist who has served for over 22 years with the Canadian Army. Although he previously sailed on HMCS Ville de Quebec for a week, the experience on HMCS William Hall was unlike any other.
“There’s a lot of pride, I feel good about it, I feel great. There is a lot of history in the names that are picked for the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN)’s vessels and it’s good to see that they are honouring the history and honouring the fighting spirit of him.”
Onboard, Sgt Safire was fully immersed in life at sea, integrating with the crew, riding in a multi-role rescue boat, and learning as much as he could about the demands of naval service.
“There are extra jobs they have while onboard, different watches they have to keep at different times and they have to be ready to jump at a moment’s notice from a dead sleep to respond to any crisis or emergency. It’s given me a new found respect for what they do, how they do it and what they train for.”
As for the conditions onboard, he said, “from what I’ve seen here, morale is very high which makes them a cohesive and strong team and if you were to take someone from the 1800’s and put them on any modern vessel and let them see how it functions, all the amenities like an infirmary to treat people’s ailments and injuries and the fact that rations last far longer, I suspect that they would have thought they’d died and gone to heaven.”
This experience was about honouring the past, continuing William Hall’s legacy, learning from each other and bringing communities together to remember what service and sacrifice to Canada is all about.
“Most Canadian Armed Forces members don’t do it for just a job or just a career but there is a sense of duty, and a sense of wanting to belong to something greater. The crew of HMCS William Hall are here to represent Canadians and to do their duty when called upon.”
That sense of duty was put into action when on May 29 and 31, and on June 8, the crew with an embarked United States Coast Guard (USCG) Law Enforcement Detachment, successfully conducted three separate interdictions resulting in a combined total of more than 1545 kilograms of cocaine seized in the Caribbean Sea, while deployed in support of Operation CARIBBE 25-02. Contributions like these to United States-led Enhanced Counternarcotics Operations under Joint Interagency Task Force South continue making the continent more secure from the threats posed by illicit trafficking, and demonstrated that the spirit of William Hall, VC, lives on through the actions of those who serve today.
