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S.S. GREEN HILL PARK
Defensively Equipped Merchant Ship (D.E.M.S.)
Green Hill Park was a Defensively Equipped Merchant Ship (DEMS). Though manned by a civilian crew, she had RCN sailors on board to man and operate the gun that was fitted to her for protection and convoy defence.
Green Hill Park (Park Steamship Company) was a freighter, built in 1943. On 06 Mar 1945 she caught fire & exploded, burning for several days in Vancouver Harbour, 8 killed 19 wounded.. Some longshoremen later confessed that they had clandestinely tapped the whisky barrels, and it was the spilled whisky that accidentally ignited, and started the fire. Green Hill Park was severely damaged, but she was repaired, sold off, and operated again under Panamaian ownership as Phaeax II, then later as Phaeax II in 1946, and as Lagos Michigan in 1956. She was scrapped in Taiwan, in 1967.
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