Spencer Smith Park Naval Monument

On the Burlington waterfront at Spencer Smith Park, a bronze sailor stands at the salute beneath the Canadian flag, the White Ensign, the Canadian Red Ensign and the Blue Ensign. Behind him, polished granite walls carry the names of the warships that served in the Royal Canadian Navy during the Second World War and in Korea, including the destroyers that carried Canadians into the Korean War.

The central panel is an “In Memoriam” to the ships and crews lost in action, from HMCS Fraser in June 1940 to HMCS Esquimalt in April 1945, and to the 2,024 naval personnel lost on active service. Its verse reads: “On all the oceans white caps flow, we do not see crosses row on row. But they who sleep beneath the sea rest in peace because our country is free.”

Nearby, “The Old Sailor (Crossing the Bar)” honours the shipmates who came home and grew older, and a Burl-Oak Naval Veterans plaque records the fleet itself — corvettes, minesweepers, frigates, destroyers, carriers and landing craft — the ships Canadians crewed in their thousands.