Post by KG on Aug 24, 2011 17:16:54 GMT
A PRESS AND MEDIA REMINDER.
MERCHANT NAVY DAY:
3rd: of September - Every Year.
MERCHANT NAVY DAY:
held on the 3rd September since 2000.
MERCHANT NAVY DAY - September 3rd
Take a little care this day and glance above the tiles,
Perchance to see a flagpole visible for miles,
Atop of it a red flag proudly whipping tight,
A Merchant Navy ensign flying there by right.
From important buildings as well as from the sea.
It’s flown to honour mariners and shipping history,
Sailing through the years, transporting all the freight,
Conserving of the lifelines keeping Britain great.
If you glance aloft and see with knowing eye,
A `duster` at the masthead when you're passing by,
Please inform your offspring while going on to say,
A debt is owed to seamen under colours flown today.
Joe Earl
Over 14,661 Merchant Navy Men were lost during World War one.
Over 30,000 men of the British Merchant Navy were lost between 1939 and 1945
For our Merchant sailors there was no phoney war that the people of Britain lived through in those early days
On September 3rd 1939, a few hours after war had been declared against Germany, the first shipping casualty occurred with the sinking of the Donaldson Line passenger ship, Athenia and the loss of 112 passengers and crew. For almost six years there was barely a day went by without the loss of merchant ships and their crews.
The gratitude owed to these men was finally recognised with the introduction of the official “Merchant Navy Day”
TOWER HILL
Behind each name a story lies
A seaman lost, a hero dies,
Duty wrought across the waves
A tale unheard in ocean graves.
By Captain Joe Earl
The Tower Hill Memorial, London commemorates men and women of the Merchant Navy and Fishing Fleets who died in both World Wars and who have no known grave. It stands on the south side of the garden of Trinity Square, London, close to The Tower of London. An Annual Commemorative Service occurs every year on the closest Sunday to MN Day – this year this will be on September the 4th.
They Bore the Brunt
By Joe Earl
They sailed the seas to bear the brunt,
They steamed the courses laid,
Ten thousand miles their battle front,
Unbacked and undismayed.
Fine seamen these of our great race,
From your seaport or town,
They risked their lives with danger faced
Until their ship went down.
Remember them - they held the line,
Won freedom on the way,
Remember them - their life was thine -
On merchant navy day.
J.Earl
“If Blood was the price -
We had to pay for our freedom
Then the Merchant Ship Sailors
Paid it in full”
Norman Date / Hon Secretary/ Merchant Navy Association Bristol UK
Please help us further remember them:
MERCHANT NAVY DAY
I see the ensigns flying, my heart fills with pride,
I see our colours carried, with seamen by my side,
I remember ships and mariners - ( and the debt we owe)
Now resting in the oceans, fathoms deep below.
Joe Earl Aug. 2010
On every ocean and every sea the line was never broken:
Named the ‘Fourth Service’ by Winston Churchill, the Merchant Navy has, throughout the nation’s history, ensured that supply lines to our Armed Forces have never been broken.
Britain could not produce enough food to feed all it’s people.
It needed raw materials from abroad to run its industries. If the merchant Navy could not bring these things into Britain by sea, the war would be lost
Winston Churchill said on 27 January 1942
'But for the Merchant Navy who bring us the food and munitions of war, Britain would be in a perilous state and indeed, without them, the Army, Navy and Air Force could not operate'.
MERCHANT NAVY DAY:
Designated the 3rd of September every year, the first one was held in September 2000.
THE MERCHANT NAVY WAS THERE EVERY DAY