Born in Ottawa, Ontario, the son of Louis-Arthur Audette and Mary-Grace Stuart, the tenth child of Andrew Stuart, he was educated as a lawyer and practiced in Montreal during the 1930s.
[citation needed] During World War II, he served with the Royal Canadian Navy and commanded several ships (HMCS Pictou, Amherst, Coaticook, and St. Catharines) in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean.
He was mentioned in dispatches and left the Navy with the rank of Lieutenant commander.
[citation needed] After the war, from 1947 to 1959, he a member of the Canadian Maritime Commission and its chairman from 1954 to 1959.
His oral history of his wartime adventures was published in Salty Dips Vol.