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Born in Bonavista, Newfoundland in 1917, he joined the Royal Navy in 1939 and sailed from Newfoundland to England with the 3rd Royal Naval Contingent in early 1940.

His first ship assignment was the armed merchant cruiser HMS Patroclus, which was torpedoed in November, 1940 by a German U-boat off Ireland. His back was badly injured when he fell from the deck to the water during the attack, and he spent several months in a hospital in Greenock, Scotland recuperating. There he survived a near miss from a bomb in a German air raid. Upon his release from hospital he was immediately assigned to the battleship HMS King George V. He was involved in the action against the German battleship Bismarck. Sometime in 1942 he left King George V and was assigned to a minesweeper operating in the area of Gibraltar. In 1943 he received a medical discharge due to his back injury, which was giving him trouble and continued to do so for many years.

He died peacefully at his home in Western Bay, Newfoundland on May 24th, 1985, aged 68.