Hal Lawrence was born in 1920 in the Royal Engineers Barracks in Catham, Kent, England. His family later moved to Halifax, where Lawrence joined the Royal Canadian Navy in 1939 and served for 28 years. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for helping to sink a German submarine in World War II. Lawrence completed his wartime service with the destroyer Sioux, sailing long convoy runs to Russia. On June 6, 1944, off the coast of Normandy, Sioux participated in the direct bombardment of inland targets that precipitated the assault on Fortress Europe. Following service during the Second World War, he made a career with the peacetime navy. His last sea appointment, before retirement in 1965, was as senior officer in command of the Eleventh Escort Squadron. At the age of forty, Lawrence started his BA at the University of Ottawa and by the time he retired had his MA and began teaching at the University of Ottawa and later, at the University of Victoria. In 1970, he started an interpersonal and socioeconomic communications company in Ottawa and transferred it to Victoria in 1980. He was accepted as a fellow in the Royal Historical Society in 1993 and is the author of several books, including A Bloody War (1979), Tales of the North Atlantic (1985), and Victory at Sea (1989). He died April 11, 1994 at his home in Victoria, British Columbia.