National Silver Cross Mother visits MARLANT, remembers fallen son

National Silver Cross Mother Debbie Sullivan with a plaque presented to her by Cmdre Christopher Robinson, Commander Canadian Fleet Atlantic. Sullivan officially holds the role of National Silver Cross Mother until Nov. 1, 2021. Photo by Joanie Veitch, Trident Staff

Joanie Veitch
Trident Newspaper
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It’s an honour she wishes she hadn’t earned.

That’s how National Silver Cross Mother Debbie Sullivan described the mixed emotions she felt following a two-day tour at Maritime Forces Atlantic (MARLANT).

Sullivan’s son, Lt(N) Christopher Saunders, was a navy submariner and combat systems engineer who died Oct. 6, 2004, from a fire in HMCS Chicoutimi. 

 One of four submarines bought from Britain in the late 1990s, Chicoutimi was on its first trip as a Royal Canadian Navy vessel and had left the Scottish port of Faslane en route to Canada just a few days earlier on Oct. 2.

 “It’s an honour to be here and to have this opportunity to do this tour as the National Silver Cross Mother, but it’s incredibly hard at the same time. I lost my son. I miss him every single day,” Sullivan said. “But just being here and doing this, I feel closer to him.”

 The Royal Canadian Legion chose Sullivan as the National Silver Cross Mother last November. While she was able to lay a wreath at the National War Memorial in Ottawa on Remembrance Day last year, due to COVID-19 restrictions Sullivan was not able to take part in other events and ceremonies she typically would have attended as part of her role.

Travelling from her home in Summerville, just outside Saint John, NB, to Halifax a few days early, Sullivan enjoyed extra time with her grandsons Ben and Luke and daughter-in-law, Gwen Manderville, Lt(N) Saunders’ widow, before the MARLANT tour began. 

Both boys — Ben now a student at Acadia University and Luke starting his last year of high school — and their mother, accompanied Sullivan during the tour, which included a luncheon in the Admiral’s Dining Room in Juno Tower with Commodore Christopher Robinson, Commander Canadian Fleet Atlantic, and Capt(N) Jean Stéphane Ouellet, Commander Canadian Submarine Force, among other guests.

Sullivan’s tour included a visit to the Naval Museum of Halifax, where she saw the new submarine exhibit, featuring artifacts and displays of submarines from the early CC-class to the present-day Victoria-class boats, along with a tour of the Dockyard’s newest ship, Margaret Brooke. 

During her visit to Naval Fleet School Atlantic’s Submarine Division, Sullivan met with submariners, some who sailed with Lt(N) Saunders, and she saw the training simulator at work.

“It was all so informative. There was a lot to take in along the way, but I learned so much,” she said.

The most memorable part of the trip, Sullivan said, was a tour of HMCS Windsor, led by Capt(N) Ouellet and LCdr Drew Matheson, Windsor’s Commanding Officer.

It was Sullivan’s first time actually being in a submarine, a Victoria-class submarine just like the one her son had sailed in.

“It gave me insight into what it would have been like when the fire started. I had been invited in 2004 to go to see Chicoutimi at Faslane (Scotland) but I couldn’t do it then. It was still hard to do it now but it helped to see it for myself,” she said, adding that she also appreciated hearing information about the increased safety protocols as a result of the tragedy.

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