National Museums Liverpool Blog - merchant navy

Our waterfront venues have a packed programme of events for this year's River Festival, which includes activities to mark the 70th anniversary of the Battle of the Atlantic.

A highlight of the programme will be a talk by TV presenter and historian at Merseyside Maritime Museum. Dan explained to us why the events are so important to him:

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It is extremely exciting to be coming to Liverpool to mark the official anniversary of a desperate and hugely important battle that raged from the first day of the war to the last. The Battle of the Atlantic was nothing less than a long running attritional struggle for national survival. Britain's enemies, as so often before in our history, attempted to shut off supplies to our island nation on which we depended. Had they succeeded the war would have been over, a starving population, and a weaponless army would have given the government no option but to sue for peace, on the enemy's terms.  

Battles were fought on fields far and near, armies were lost, territories evacuated, but Britain’s ability to fight on was really at stake on the cruel stretch of the North Atlantic. It is a titanic struggle that is often overlooked by the people of Britain, a battle won by the supreme ability of the Royal Navy and merchant marine, institutions hardened by centuries of conflict and professionalism.

My grandfather served in the Royal Canadian Navy escorting convoys throughout the war. His stories mesmerised me as a young boy and fired my love of history. In Liverpool I will be marking the battle with the public and the surviving veterans, and my grandfather will constantly be on my mind.

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Update 15 April 2013: Dan Snow's talk is now fully booked However there are lots more free events for all ages during the River Festival,see the website for full River Festival event listings.

This handsome young man is Willie Dailey of Stafford who decided he wanted a life at sea and persuaded his parents to apprentice him on a voyage of the ship Benares, from Dundee to Chile and San Francisco, USA.  It was 1886 and he was 16 years old.  The Maritime Archives and Library hold some letters by Willie and his family and the ones from his mother would be achingly familiar even today.  His worried mother, Jane, tells Willie to mind his manners, wash his clothes and eat well.  She hopes his Captain is kind, his crewmates friendly and that he is warm enough, dry enough and not sea sick.  She tells him off when he fails to write.  The forms of communication may be different to today, but the emotions are just the same.  Jane mentions at least 4 other children, so she certainly had her hands full, but seafaring was, and still is, a dangerous life, so she must have been deeply concerned for his safety and wellbeing.  Two of Jane's letters are from 1906 and by this time Willie has a wife and child.  His mother is less worried about him and writes instead about the wet summer weather, another topic that is familiar today.  But as we approach Mothering Sunday, spare a thought for worried mothers, waiting for their children to get in touch.

At first families back home in Liverpool were oblivious to the horror that had befallen their loved ones.

On November 23 1942 my grandmother watched from Crosby beach as Liverpool liner SS Ceramic left the River Mersey. Her husband Fred was aboard working as a steward. Clutching her three-month-old baby, Annie Felton waved the ship off, unaware that this would be the very final farewell.
 
The 18,400 ton Ceramic was launched in 1912 by Harland and Wolff in Belfast. She was the first ship built by White Star Line after Titanic and spent her years sailing the Liverpool to Australia route.

She was nicknamed “the relief of Bootle” because she’d offered work to jobless Liverpool seamen taking them off the dole queues.

On this day 70-years-ago (December 6 1942), Ceramic was en-route to Sydney. But she never made the Harbour Bridge. The merchant ship would be torpedoed and sunk in the Atlantic off The Azores.

In deep of night U-515 aimed its torpedoes and unleashed hell. Passengers and crew scrambled into lifeboats, but this only prolonged the agony. As lifeboats capsized there was no escape from chaos of storm and sea.

Of the 656 men, women and children aboard, just one survived. U-515 emerged to pluck just one person from the carnage - sapper Eric Munday. It would be 10 months before the fate of Ceramic would be known back in Liverpool.

The sinking remains one of the worst shipping disasters of all time. The definitive story of Ceramic and account of sole survivor Eric Munday is available in a book by Clare Hardy called: “SS Ceramic – the untold story”: www.ssceramic.co.uk

SS Ceramic photograph is from the collections of Merseyside Maritime Museum. Our Maritime Archives and Library holds an extensive collection of maritime books and archives spanning three centuries, including one of the finest collections of merchant shipping records in the UK. www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/maritime/archive/

By Dickie Felton

 

Whilst remembering the contribution the merchant navy has made, and continues to make, to Britain, you may be tempted into a little family history research on your seafaring ancestors. 

Merchant seafarers are well documented compared with other professions.  Most of the records are held at the National Archives although to complicate matters the documentation changes over time as each system set up by the Board of Trade was overwhelmed by the growth of Britain's merchant fleet.  The Maritime Archive & Library has an information sheet that explains how to track the records down. 

This image is of a Mariner's Register Ticket, issued to Thomas Crone born Liverpool, 1833.  The seafarer was required to keep this document and give it to the ship's master when he signed the crew agreement.  The other half of the tickets, which were issued to seafarers between 1845-1854, are held at the National Archives and list the voyages of the seafarer.

Sunday 2nd September marks National Merchant Navy Day which commemorates the 40,000 seafarers who died whilst in Britain’s Merchant Navy during the Second World War.
Those seafarers ranged in age from 14 years old to 78 years old, and also included  8,500 Asian seaman and seafarers from across the World who served in the British Merchant Navy.

The 3rd September marks the day when war was officially declared between Britain and Germany, and the nearest Sunday to this date is usually chosen to commemorate National Merchant Navy Day.  This year the 2nd is the closet Sunday, and there will be a midday service at Our Lady & St Nicholas’ seafarers Church in Chapel Street, Liverpool.
After the church service there will be a parade from the Pier head, please see the link for details.

As part of the commemoration the Red Ensign flag will be flown from some public buildings in the city.  This flag is the official flag of the British merchant marine (or fleet). In the Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Battle of the Atlantic gallery you can find out more about the important role carried out by the Merchant Navy in the Second World War.
The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest campaign during the Second World War. In 1939 Britain relied on its North Atlantic shipping routes and it needed essential imports from the United States and Canada. In total 60,000 Allied Merchant seafarers lost their lives and it is to them that we pay homage to.

 

The Lusitania story is one of my favourites because not only does the disaster seem unbelievable to this day but because this was Liverpool’s favourite liner.

 

At my local church – St James’s in West Derby – you can see a unique glass memorial with an image of Lusitania prominently included to symbolise Liverpool’s suffering in the Great War.

 

The strange behaviour of a passenger was followed by one of the great maritime disasters.

 

Robert Timmis was strolling along the deck with his work colleague Ralph Moodie when they saw a man strap on his lifebelt and climb into a lifeboat.

 

No-one could persuade the passenger – 43-year-old Michael Pappadopoulo,  from Greece - to get out.

 

Did he have a premonition? He must have been overcome with some overwhelming fear to take such drastic action.

 

Pappadopoulo spent an uncomfortable night in the lifeboat and presumably was relieved when the day dawned and everything was running smoothly.

 

It was 7 May 1915 and a glorious spring day as the Lusitania headed for Liverpool, the Irish coast on her port side

 

Timmis was a British cotton trader who was based in Gainesville, Texas. He and Moodie played medicine ball before going to lunch.

 

While they were eating, a U-boat submarine had stalked the Lusitania and fired a torpedo. Timmis later described the impact as a “penetrating thrust” – the ship was already listing when they had left the dining room.

 

Chaotic scenes followed as people scrambled for the boats as the great ship settled deeper and deeper into the water. Timmis was a big, solidly-built man and people sought reassurance from him.

 

Steerage passengers crowded around, many of them Russians who could not speak English.

 

Just 18 minutes after being struck by the torpedo, Lusitania took her final plunge. Both Timmis and Moodie were dragged down with her.

 

Timmis, a strong swimmer, remained remarkably calm and counted the 32 strokes it took to get back to the surface - he reckoned he had been sucked down 60 ft. He was later rescued by the Lusitania’s carpenter, Neil Robertson of Bootle. Moodie was never seen again.

 

At Merseyside Maritime Museum there is an inscribed photograph given by Timmis to his rescuer.

 

It reads: “To Neil Robertson, carpenter, Lusitania who took me into a damaged collapsible Lusitania boat about two hours after the ship had been torpedoed May 7 1915. I being in the water without a lifebelt. He acted as a good seaman and a brave man.”

 

Michael Pappadopoulo, whose forebodings had proved so correct, was also among the 1,200 people who died.

 

His wife Angela, wearing a sweater and trousers given by a crew member, swam a long way towards the distant shore before being rescued.

 

This is a version of my Maritime Tale that originally appeared in the Liverpool Echo,

This is an entry from a wages book for a voyage on the Blue Funnel vessel Anchises beginning in August 1922. It might not look significant, but it is.  This is the first voyage of Victoria Drummond, signed on as 10th Engineer and paid £12 a month.  Drummond was the first woman to qualify as a marine engineer and she managed to have a successful career at sea despite encountering prejudice and discrimination.  She was awarded the Lloyd's Bravery Medal and an MBE for heroic actions during the Second World War when her ship Bonita was bombed.  More information about her life can be found online here and the Maritime Archives & Library holds a copy of her biography.  Her pioneering life is also remembered by the Victoria Drummond Award given by Nautilus, the Merchant Navy Union, to women whose achievements boost the profile of women at sea. 

Many ships survive attacks in wartime and stay afloat and I like this story because the ship concerned was obviously built to last.

 

Some ships have a certain look about them – this is one reason vessels hold a great deal of interest to lots of people.

 

Eight men died in the torpedo attack by a German U-boat submarine but the ship stayed afloat - and went on to survive a second attack later in the First World War.

 

The 11,635-ton Haverford was a solidly-built passenger cargo liner constructed in 1901 by John Brown & Co of Glasgow for the International Navigation Co (INC), Liverpool.

 

She is believed to have been named after Haverford, a town in Pennsylvania where INC director Clement Griscom lived.

 

Both Haverford and her sister Merion, perhaps unusually for the time, carried just one class of passenger, equal to First Class on other ships.

 

Haverford’s maiden voyage was from Southampton to New York and she later served on a variety of routes such as Liverpool – Philadelphia and Liverpool-Halifax-Portland.

 

She served as a troop transport and was torpedoed, possibly by the UB-38, on 26 June 1917.

 

Haverford managed to limp to safety under her own steam and was beached, repaired and brought back into service after six months. The following year she again survived a U-boat attack.

 

Pictured is a 6 ft long, 1:48 builder’s model of the Haverford on display in Merseyside Maritime Museum which clearly reflects her sturdy construction. She is shown in the colours of the White Star Line, her owners from 1921.

 

Superb detail includes her name on the bridge, intricately-modelled lifeboats, fine deck fittings and a retractable ladder down one side used for boarding the vessel.

 

Haverford kept her original name after being acquired by White Star, which was very unusual. Most White Star ships had names ending with ic – such as Titanic, Majestic and Britannic.

 

Haverford developed structural problems in 1924 and made her last voyage, between Liverpool and Philadelphia, that year. She was scrapped in 1925.

 

Her sister did not have such a charmed life. Merion was torpedoed and sunk by the UB-8 on 31 May 1915 near the entrance to the Dardanelles in the Aegean Sea.

 

She was serving as a battle cruiser, equipped with real and dummy guns as part of naval strategy to fool the enemy. Some crew members were blown into the water and swam shore clinging to the remains of the false guns. Happily no-one died in the attack.

 

INC was formed in 1871 and went on to own 26 ships totalling 181,000 tons and at one stage carried more passengers than either Cunard or White Star.

 

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo (ends 19 Nov).

Merchant Navy Day is celebrated on 3rd September, to commemorate the contribution the merchant navy has made, and continues to make, to Britain.  There is a special service being held on Sunday 4th September at St Nicholas' Church, Liverpool at 12pm.

This cartoon is taken from the wartime log kept by merchant seafarer Peter Rogan while he was a POW in Milag Nord during the Second World War.  More images from the diary are on our website in a small online exhibition.  With so much merchant navy history to cover, this is just a small example of the service given and hardship suffered by merchant seafarers, plenty more information is available in the records held by the Maritime Archives & Library or on display at the Merseyside Maritime Museum.