Post by Administrator on Jun 1, 2019 23:29:35 GMT
'The young generation should know': Britain's forgotten Merchant Navy heroes
Britain's 'fourth service' went decades without recognition for their wartime efforts. Now, Nigel Richardson hears from the men who delivered the goods
On June 6, 2002, Donald Hunter stood on the beach at Arromanches for that year’s D-Day commemorations and resolved to right a wrong. ‘It was a lovely evening. We’d just been laying wreaths – it was quite moving – and I thought of the men who have been forgotten, wiped off the map.’
Hunter is a Merchant Navy veteran who served at D-Day in 1944. Along with members of the armed services who gave their lives in Operation Neptune, some 2,450 merchant seafarers died. Yet there was no memorial to them. Twelve months later, thanks to Hunter’s fundraising and chivvying, a plaque was unveiled on a wall of the D-Day Museum at Arromanches that is now a focal point for the honouring of previously unsung men.
His grievance about the lack of recognition for the role of the Merchant Navy in wartime is widespread among veterans. ‘I was proud to do the job,’ says Ron Quested. ‘We all were. But when you weren’t allowed to join the British Legion afterwards because you weren’t a “fighting force” – what a load of tosh that was!’
Captain Richard Woodman, a maritime historian who was in the service himself, says, ‘It’s a national disgrace that our contribution hasn’t been better His grievance about the lack of recognition for the role of the Merchant Navy in wartime is widespread among veterans. ‘I was proud to do the job,’ says Ron Quested. ‘We all were. But when you weren’t allowed to join the British Legion afterwards because you weren’t a “fighting force” – what a load of tosh that was!’
Captain Richard Woodman, a maritime historian who was in the service himself, says, ‘It’s a national disgrace that our contribution hasn’t been better recognised,’ and attributes the neglect to that good old British bugbear, class. ‘The Merchant Navy’s great virtue,’ he says, ‘was that it was probably one of the only meritocracies this country has produced in peacetime’, which the hierarchical armed services have always found difficult to come to terms with.
It wasn’t until the year 2000 that seamen who flew the ‘Red Duster’ – the MN ensign – were granted the right to march as an official body in the Cenotaph commemorations. The veterans marching on Sunday 8 November will be representing those civilian seafarers who have perished in defence of the country: 16,000 in the First World War, at least 35,000 between 1939 and 1945 (the proportion of dead being greater than in any of the fighting services) and a small number in the Falklands war.
More than 140,000 merchant seamen are reckoned to have been at sea at any one time in the Second World War. They transported food, raw materials and fuel to Britain, and carried troops, equipment and explosives to fighting fronts. These ships – not those of the Royal Navy – were generally the targets of enemy mines, torpedoes and shells. As Hunter says of the Normandy landings, ‘If you sink the transports and drown the troops you don’t have a problem, do you?’
One aspect of Merchant Navy history that is still neglected is the contribution of foreign seamen. Many thousands from India, Hong Kong, the Caribbean, west Africa and elsewhere served on Second World War ships.
These are a few of the facts. What follows is something of the reality. It was gloriously sunny autumn weather the week I met the men who appear in these pages. Britain looked like a country you would put your life on the line for a thousand times over, and that is what each of them did.
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Britain's 'fourth service' went decades without recognition for their wartime efforts. Now, Nigel Richardson hears from the men who delivered the goods
On June 6, 2002, Donald Hunter stood on the beach at Arromanches for that year’s D-Day commemorations and resolved to right a wrong. ‘It was a lovely evening. We’d just been laying wreaths – it was quite moving – and I thought of the men who have been forgotten, wiped off the map.’
Hunter is a Merchant Navy veteran who served at D-Day in 1944. Along with members of the armed services who gave their lives in Operation Neptune, some 2,450 merchant seafarers died. Yet there was no memorial to them. Twelve months later, thanks to Hunter’s fundraising and chivvying, a plaque was unveiled on a wall of the D-Day Museum at Arromanches that is now a focal point for the honouring of previously unsung men.
His grievance about the lack of recognition for the role of the Merchant Navy in wartime is widespread among veterans. ‘I was proud to do the job,’ says Ron Quested. ‘We all were. But when you weren’t allowed to join the British Legion afterwards because you weren’t a “fighting force” – what a load of tosh that was!’
Captain Richard Woodman, a maritime historian who was in the service himself, says, ‘It’s a national disgrace that our contribution hasn’t been better His grievance about the lack of recognition for the role of the Merchant Navy in wartime is widespread among veterans. ‘I was proud to do the job,’ says Ron Quested. ‘We all were. But when you weren’t allowed to join the British Legion afterwards because you weren’t a “fighting force” – what a load of tosh that was!’
Captain Richard Woodman, a maritime historian who was in the service himself, says, ‘It’s a national disgrace that our contribution hasn’t been better recognised,’ and attributes the neglect to that good old British bugbear, class. ‘The Merchant Navy’s great virtue,’ he says, ‘was that it was probably one of the only meritocracies this country has produced in peacetime’, which the hierarchical armed services have always found difficult to come to terms with.
It wasn’t until the year 2000 that seamen who flew the ‘Red Duster’ – the MN ensign – were granted the right to march as an official body in the Cenotaph commemorations. The veterans marching on Sunday 8 November will be representing those civilian seafarers who have perished in defence of the country: 16,000 in the First World War, at least 35,000 between 1939 and 1945 (the proportion of dead being greater than in any of the fighting services) and a small number in the Falklands war.
More than 140,000 merchant seamen are reckoned to have been at sea at any one time in the Second World War. They transported food, raw materials and fuel to Britain, and carried troops, equipment and explosives to fighting fronts. These ships – not those of the Royal Navy – were generally the targets of enemy mines, torpedoes and shells. As Hunter says of the Normandy landings, ‘If you sink the transports and drown the troops you don’t have a problem, do you?’
One aspect of Merchant Navy history that is still neglected is the contribution of foreign seamen. Many thousands from India, Hong Kong, the Caribbean, west Africa and elsewhere served on Second World War ships.
These are a few of the facts. What follows is something of the reality. It was gloriously sunny autumn weather the week I met the men who appear in these pages. Britain looked like a country you would put your life on the line for a thousand times over, and that is what each of them did.
LINK