Oakwood Collegiate Institute - Oracle Yearbook (Toronto Ontario, Canada)

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1 car, against the world ' s greatest drivers was, to Ronnie, the most thrilling thing that could have happened. In the months following this incident, Ronnie spent every minute driving, testing, changing, trying to make his car even faster. He wasn ' t satisfied with two hundred mph. He had to go faster. Beating Brahbam was getting to be almost a fanaticism with him. I saw what was happening but I could not reach him. The event Ronnie had built towards was the U.S. Grand Prix. The car was in perfect condi- tion for the race. On the day of the race I came to see Ronnie at the pits. He appeared to feel no tension what- soever. As I came over to his car to wish him luck he said, I guess this is it Bill, the race I ve been building for, the race of my life. Sure it ' s an important one, I replied, but not the most important thing in your life. Don ' t be too disappointed if you don ' t win. After all, you re racing against some of the world s great- est drivers. For the first time since I met Ronnie I saw a strange new emotion — hate, pure hard hate in his eyes. I ' m going to win, he said grimly. Pulling away towards the starting position on the grid and got ready, gunned the motor and was off. From my position in the pits I saw what was probably the greatest race ever run. Brahbam and Dean, Dean and Brahbam all the way! They sped over the course at fantastic speeds, a flash of colour as they went by. Mile after mile they cov- ered, aroaranda screech of tires as they passed. As the race neared its end, Brahbam began to creep ahead and establish a lead. Ronnie was driving with all his skill, but he couldn ' t seem to close the margin. As Ronnie neared the last turn he saw it was hopeless; he couldn ' t win. Ronnie never slowed down to take the last cor- ner. When he hit it at full speed the car rolled, exploded and burst into flames ACTION The deadly black steel shark slid smoothly into her berth at St. Nazaire, her turbines hum- ming contentedly at the thought of a week or more s rest after a three-week adventure in the North Atlantic. The thoughts of the tired crew on board varied greatly, from a deep regret at having to go to sea again shortly, to the eagerness for an immediate departure. On the whole, though, the submariners were in good spirits, since their patrol ha4 been highly successful, having sunk two fair-sized freighters from the States and also one lone oil-tanker. Hans Schumann, a blond young German from Munich, was one of those impatient to leave again for the high seas. He hated the Americans intensely for their part in the First World War and now wished only to meet them in action. Germany was his homeland and he wanted to die fighting for her. Some of his friends did not agree with his ideas but they were fairly sympathetic to- wards him. They fought because they had to, and since the navy was exciting, they took to U- boats; but the majority of them felt no personal dislike towards either the Americans or British. On the first of the month, the shark sailed from the pens in the Bay of Biscay. Silently, ghostly, she glided westward, one of the most feared creatures of the Atlantic Ocean, barely noticeable in the moonless night. Rumour among the men said she was heading for the American east coast, and maybe even for New York harbour itself. The Americans had just come into the war two weeks previously and so their ships were le- gal prey for the Axis navy and aircraft. The chance of meeting the Yanks in battle appealed greatly to Hans, who was longing for the actual taste of action. Nine days later they were lying one hundred and fifty miles off Cape Cod. The nine days had not been entirely uneventful. Twice they had been forced to dive because of patrolling Cansos based in Ireland. The secondtime they hadhadsome trouble eluding an accompanying British destroy- er and had received slight damage from depth charges. But now, just off the Atlantic Seaboard in United States territory, they were in much greater danger owing to the Coast Guard. At four o ' clock the next morning they sighted a convoy steaming north-east from New York har- bour. It was a fairly large one consisting of seventeen merchantmen and a guard of two des- troyers and several corvettes. No boats were zig- zagging yet, since the presence of German sub- marines so close to the States was unlikely, in the minds of the Americans. The U-boat eyed the ships like a hungry wolf, but decided not to attempt any action until they were further out to sea. Perhaps a North Atlantic storm would scatter the boats in the convoy and make things much easier for the Germans. She stayed with the convoy for three days before her chance came. She had carefully studied the routines of the patrolling corvettes and destroyers andnow found a weak spot. Every hour and a half the destroy- ers protecting the rear steamed halfway up the port side of the convoy to check on all the ships under her wing. A corvette was supposed to take her place at the rear when she went forward, but it did not always stay right at the back, preferring to run even with the second last oil-tanker. This left one ship, also a tanker, vulnerable to attack for about fifteen to twenty minutes at a time. That night the lone shark closed in for the kill. The tanker must have realized her perilous position at the end of the convoy and was there- fore zig-zagging frantically. The U-boat man- 87

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THE END OF THE RACE DEATH VIOLENTLY ENDS RACING ' S CINDERELLA STORY Ronnie Dean, the greatest figure to hit the sports car racing scene in manv years, died to- day in a freak accident when his new Cooper Climax went out of control in the final minutes of the U.S. Grand Prix. The wildly careening car rolled over and burned, with Dean trapped inside. Dean was half a lap behind the world s champion. Jack Brahbam, who won the race — As I read this article in the privacy of my own home, I once again wondered whether it had real- ly been an accident. No one would ever know, of course, but I didn ' t think it had been, and I was, after all, best qualified to voice an opin- ion; I had been the only one who had tried to understand Ronnie, his motives and desires. I glanced over the article once again and as I did, all the events of my relationship with Ronnie passed swiftly through my mind. Yes, his had been a Cinderella story all right. I remembered the first time I saw Ronnie. It had been at a small dirt race track in a little Ohio town. Ronnie was driving an old battered Chev, but oh, could he drive! He completely out- classed everyone else in the race, even those with more powerful cars. He finished three laps ahead of his nearest competitor. My curiosity aroused, I went down to the pit area to try to meet this driver. To my surprise, Ronnie Dean had a strikingly childish face, a little on the smallish side, and he looked no more than sixteen years old. Hi! I said. ' My name is Bill Wilson. Your drivingreally impressed me. The Bill Wilson? he asked; the sports car driver? ' I used to drive a little, I explained, but let ' s talk about you. Aren ' t you a little too young to be driving? I ' m eighteen, he explained proudly. He was very excited when I told him I thought he was a natural for sports car racing. We 11 have to see what your parents think about it, first, of course, I told him. I don ' t have any parents; I ' m an orphan, was his reply. I soon found out that his parents had died when he was an infant. He had left the orphanage three years ago and had been working in a garage, sleeping in the back room at night, and spending every spare moment working on his car. I ain ' t ever lost a race, he told me boldly, and I ain ' t going to either. He left after this brazen remark to bask in the praise of the crowd. After seeing him race twice more I was firmly convinced that he had the makings of a great driver. Since retiring from racing the previous year, I had been looking for a hobby and now I had found it. I would take this boy and make him the first truly great driver to come out of the United States. I told Ronnie my plans and he was wildly en- thusiastic. When he first saw the Envoy Formula Junior I had bought, he couldn ' t wait to try it out. Usually it takes a new driver a few months to become accustomed to a racing car, it ' s sensitive steering, and great acceleration. But to my sur- prise Ronnie was driving like an expert after a week. Not only that, but he soon made himself accustomed to the mechanical system of the car, and was working on the engine, adjusting the gear ratios, not satisfied till he got every last ounce of performance out of the car. Although I advised him against it, Ronnie en- tered the first race held in the vicinity, for which the car was eligible. Racing against men twice his age, with much more experience Ronnie came back, after a poor start, gaining on every lap, to win by a close margin. Triumphs followed. In his first year of racing, Ronnie won all twenty races he entered, racing against drivers with greater prestige. All his spare time was spent around the pits, working on the car, talking with the drivers and mechanics, and driving. Ronnie was giving his whole life to racing! His food was the race, the competition. The air he breathed had to be the air of the pits, charged with excitement. One day I confronted him with a big surprise. I wrote a letter to the Porsche factory and I have just received their reply. They want you to drive on their factory team. Ronnie was overwhelmed with joy! His first race in the capacity of a member of a factory team was at Harewood Acres, in the Carling 300. This race, was his first out of the country. Here I saw Ronnie drive the best race of his young life, playing it cagey and cautious, and pulling ahead in the final stages to beat Peter Ryan, also driving a Porsche RS60. Later, when I talked to him, he seemed overly cocksure. He only talked about the car ' s performance and how it could be improved. Ronnie ' s next big assignment was a race at Watkins Glen, New York. He swept his own class the RS60, leading his nearest competitor by al- most five laps. The winner of the Formula 1 class was Jack Brahbam, who was world cham- pion at this time. Ronnie was completely cap- tivated by the Formula 1 cars and by Brahbam s performance. From this time on, his greatest ambition was to beat Brahbam in a Formula 1 car. This race at Watkins Glen was the one that brought Ronnie into international prominence. In the weeks following the race, three major maga- zines featured articles on Ronnie, bringing out the Cinderella qualities of his career, the orphan who had won every race he had entered. Although greatly excited, the ambition to beat Brahbam never left his mind. When the invitation to join the Cooper factory team reached Ronnie, he almost skyrocketed. The chance to drive the most powerful Formula 86

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oeuvred into place and sent off her forward tor- pedoes into the line of ships, the sudden release shaking the whole boat. The Germans scored well. The two shots meant for the lagging tanker resulted in its explosion and complete destruc- tion. One of the other torpedoes was lucky and hit another tanker in the bow. Now the destroyer was on the hunt. It raced, zig-zagging continually, towards the point of at- tack. Depth charges were coming down now and the sub decided it would be unhealthy to stay with two destroyers on her tail. She set her course direct for New York City and, running silent so as not to be easily detected by the Yank destroyers, headed to the south-west. Hans and the other crew members were elated with their first American kill and hoped to add many more to their record before returning home to St. Nazaire. To flans this was only the begin- ning. His hatred of the Yanks had shown clearly during the attack on the convoy by his deep de- light when he had seen the tanker explode into a crimson fire-ball. Closer to the coast and New York City the sub had to be more careful. There were many convoys continuously crossing the Atlantic and most of them started from New York. The choice for the U-boat was great, but there was also a greater concentration of warships of all kinds. Because of the large number of ships in the port, the Ger- mans were tempted to enter right into the harbour and leave before the Yanks knew what was hap- pening. But they wisely decided to wait a while and hear what orders they received from home. For the following days the German sub quietly glided about under waterwaiting for unsuspecting stragglers at the rear of convoys. They sank a few in this manner, but after the sixth night things were getting too hot. The American coast guard was on the look-out and several destroyers had been sent to search for and kill the sub. Having been bashed around slightly by enemy depth charges and kept on edge by anti-submarine airplanes, the Germans decided to make their way slowly back to France. But the humming of destroyers screws came ominously closer over- head, and slowed down to a dull whine. Every man was tense with expectation, waiting for the charges to be dropped. Suddenly the boat was lifted and released again as if by a giant hand. She was tossed about violently and the destroyer continued throwing its patterns of depth charges further ahead of the sub. Crippled, the German tried desperately to get away, but it was badly damaged and would have to surface soon. The Yankee destroyer was waiting. The Amerikaner ' accepted the German surrender and proceeded to take the prisoners aboard. The crew were downcast; Hans was in a depressed and vindictive mood. Soon the captain of the destroy- er came down to address the prisoners. He spoke courteously to them, standing near Hans. In the next instant Hans was lying dead on the deck with five bullets in his side. On his face was a smile of satisfaction, for the American captain was dead at his side, Hans hands still around his neck in a stranglehold. J. van Oordt 1 fiHALL WAIT NO LONGER The moon shone clear and bright on a cold October night. The stars twinkled across the heavens like a million diamonds on a carpet of ebon velvet. Could one have perched upon one of those glittering sentinels of the night, seeing and hearing all that took place on the earth, one could hear the bed-time prayer of a little Sas- katchewan boy: Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. With this, Johnny Reid smiled and kissed his mother good-night. Evelyn Reid tip-toed to the door, pausing to glance lovingly at her eight year old son. Already Johnny had dropped off to sleep, and he felt himself drifting through a thick unpalpable mist. Suddenly, without warning he emerged from it to find confronting him a queer little man with huge ears and a crooked nose. Astonished, he tried to speak, but only stood there gaping. Welcome to the land of sea people, said the elf. Would you like to visit my children? Oh, yes, stammered Johnny, but how? Without replying the elf turned and, beckoning to Johnny to follow, lead the way through a heavy iron gate and down a mysterious path. Down, down, down it twisted, past mammoth gray rocks and stunted gnarled trees. At last it reached the sea. The little elf grasped Johnny by the hand and whispe red one swift instruction: You must return here in one hour. I shall wait no longer. With these words he hurled the bewildered boy into the water. When Johnny had recovered from the shock he started to swim, but realized he did not have to, for a strange current was drawing him, directing him down into the depths. This water was strange; it was warm; it had a weird silvery glint. He tasted it; it was sweet. He inhaled; breath came in. He was now approaching bottom, however, and as he peered breathlessly through the dim waters he could make out a number of strange figures frolicking about, playing at hide and seek among