Unraveling the story of AB Zbarsky
By Lookout Production on May 08, 2024 with Comments 0
AB Zbarsky was one of 44 members killed after a torpedo attack by a German submarine in 1945.
Peter Mallett,
Staff Writer
—
Able Seaman (AB) Ralph Zbarsky was born on Oct. 23, 1924, in Saskatoon, Sask. He later attended the University of Saskatchewan and was president of the Saskatchewan branch of the Canadian Young Judaea before his family moved to British Columbia. He enrolled in the Royal Canadian Navy in 1941 at 17. During the attack on HMCS Esquimalt, AB Zbarsky managed to scramble into a lifeboat but died of exposure before the rescue of survivors by a passing ship. He is buried at Schara Tzedek Cemetery in New Westminster.
The letter is one of 40 hand-written war letters by Able Seaman (now Sailor 2nd Class) Ralph Zbarsky, one of the 44 men who died on HMCS Esquimalt in an attack carried out by a German U-Boat on that fateful day.
The letter will never be opened, or its contents read, says Ralph Zbarsky, AB Zbarsky’s nephew. He bears the same name as his uncle.
“Despite the curiosity of what is inside the envelope, this letter serves the family as an important reminder of a life sacrificed and never completed and will remain unopened,” he said.
For the past decade, Zbarsky has attended every annual memorial for the Second World War minesweeper and its crew at Esquimalt’s Memorial Park. He says it has brought him closer to understanding a family member he never got the chance to know.
In recent years, Zbarsky has connected with relatives of the HMCS Esquimalt crew on multiple naval-themed Facebook groups. Meeting others connected to the ship and unlocking his uncle’s story has led to a more formidable riddle that weighs daily in Zbarsky’s mind.
“I am trying to figure out, and probably never will [understand], why a 17-year-old kid halfway through his university degree in Saskatchewan would enlist in the navy in the first place,” said Zbarsky. “He had never seen the ocean so what caused him to give up everything and enlist?”
While searching for answers, Zbarsky befriended Scott MacMillian, a Canadian musician and composer and grandson of Lieutenant-Commander (LCdr) Robert MacMillan at the time of the tragedy, the captain of HMCS Esquimalt. Scott MacMillan has written a musical composition about the attack titled Within Sight of Shore.
In 2016, at the opening of the CFB Esquimalt’s Naval & Military Museum’s HMCS Esquimalt exhibit, Zbarsky donated several family possessions. This year, Zbarsky stopped by the museum for a tour with his sister Debby to view the donation with her. Some of the items include official correspondence from LCdr MacMillan regarding Zbarsky’s fate after the sinking, a government letter with further details of the sinking, two telegrams from AB Zbarsky to his family, a monogrammed cigarette lighter, AB Zbarsky’s war medals and a Mother’s Cross and Silver Tablet.
An unopened letter postmarked Apr. 16, 1945, holds significant meaning to a retired electrical engineer from Vancouver; it is a cherished link to a personal tragedy aboard HMCS Esquimalt.
The letter is one of 40 hand-written war letters by Able Seaman (now Sailor 2nd Class) Ralph Zbarsky, one of the 44 men who died on HMCS Esquimalt in an attack carried out by a German U-Boat on that fateful day.
The letter will never be opened, or its contents read, says Ralph Zbarsky, AB Zbarsky’s nephew. He bears the same name as his uncle.
“Despite the curiosity of what is inside the envelope, this letter serves the family as an important reminder of a life sacrificed and never completed and will remain unopened,” he said.
For the past decade, Zbarsky has attended every annual memorial for the Second World War minesweeper and its crew at Esquimalt’s Memorial Park. He says it has brought him closer to understanding a family member he never got the chance to know.
A morale patch of HMCS Esquimalt presented by Ralph Zbarsky to members of the CFB Esquimalt Naval and Military Museum.
In recent years, Zbarsky has connected with relatives of the HMCS Esquimalt crew on multiple naval-themed Facebook groups. Meeting others connected to the ship and unlocking his uncle’s story has led to a more formidable riddle that weighs daily in Zbarsky’s mind.
“I am trying to figure out, and probably never will [understand], why a 17-year-old kid halfway through his university degree in Saskatchewan would enlist in the navy in the first place,” said Zbarsky. “He had never seen the ocean so what caused him to give up everything and enlist?”
While searching for answers, Zbarsky befriended Scott MacMillian, a Canadian musician and composer and grandson of Lieutenant-Commander (LCdr) Robert MacMillan at the time of the tragedy, the captain of HMCS Esquimalt. Scott MacMillan has written a musical composition about the attack titled Within Sight of Shore.
In 2016, at the opening of the CFB Esquimalt’s Naval & Military Museum’s HMCS Esquimalt exhibit, Zbarsky donated several family possessions. This year, Zbarsky stopped by the museum for a tour with his sister Debby to view the donation with her. Some of the items include official correspondence from LCdr MacMillan regarding Zbarsky’s fate after the sinking, a government letter with further details of the sinking, two telegrams from AB Zbarsky to his family, a monogrammed cigarette lighter, AB Zbarsky’s war medals and a Mother’s Cross and Silver Tablet.
Ralph Zbarsky and his sister Debby display a plaque commemorating the naming of Zbarsky Bay in Saskatchwan and an HMCS Esquimalt morale patch at the CFB Esquimalt Naval and Military Museum, Apr. 16. Photos: Peter Mallett/Lookout.
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