Real Dumoulin was born November 7, 1924 in Timmins, Ontario.  He grew up there against the backdrop of the Great Depression, but as Real recalls his father was employed in the Hollinger gold mine, so the family was relatively well off.  Real attended Catholic schools and he grew up speaking French and English, doing all the normal things teenage boys did in interwar Timmins – including playing hockey with Bill Barilko!  When the war came, Real left school after Grade 10, and he chose to enlist in the navy against his mother’s objections – his father gave him permission though.  Training for Real began in Kingston, and later steps took him to HMCS Cornwallis, where he learned to be a gunner.  Ship assignments came soon after, and Real was sent to HMCS Iroquois.  It was a tribal-class destroyer, with a crew complement of about 300; on it Real would experience all the conditions that a life at sea had to offer, from the threat of U-Boat attacks to the difficult watch schedule to the swinging hammocks on the mess deck.  They set off to Britain, and sailing mainly out of Plymouth in groups of 3-4 ships, the Iroquois patrolled English coastal areas and the Bay of Biscay, attacking German shipping of all types.  They went as far south as the Azores and Gibraltar, and in the Arctic the Iroquois participated in the Murmansk convoys to Russia.  When the war came to an end, Real was involved in operations to return the Norwegian king back to Norway and to escort German ships back to Wilhelmshaven.  The Iroquois made its way back to Canada in June 1945, and Real returned to civilian life in Timmins, where he met and married Edith and started his own family.  He was not done with a military life though:  Deciding that a life in the mines was not for him, Real joined the RCAF a few years after the war, making a career for himself as a mechanic.  Real Dumoulin was interviewed by Scott Masters at his home in Timmins in July 2025.