Post by KG on Dec 18, 2011 20:07:52 GMT
Memorial will commemorate Newport boy seaman
Friday 16th December 2011
LINK:
www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/9424858.Memorial_will_commemorate_Newport_boy_seaman/
THEY found his body two days after the explosion, blown into a previously unsearched area by its force.
From the ship, the body was taken ashore and buried in the British Cemetery at Ben M’Sik at Casablanca, on the road to Marrakesh.
Raymond Steed was just 14 years and 207 days old.
“Right up until last year, it was thought he was the youngest person to have died while in service in the Second World War,” said Bertram Bale, who has led the campaign for a memorial in Newport for the young seaman.
“We accept now that the youngest was a Reginald Earnshaw, who was 14 years and 52 days – which does not alter the fact that the sacrifice of this young Gwent boy should in some way be remembered.”
The keen Boy Scout was born at Rimperley Terrace, St Mellons – then part of Monmouthshire – to Wilfred Steed and Olive (née Bright) on October 1,1928.
Shortly afterwards, with his eight siblings, Raymond moved to Christchurch Road, Newport.
It is expected that some time in the next 12 months, a large column of granite bearing a plaque with an inscribed poem and a relief casting of the boy seaman will be lowered into place near the Old Town Dock, from where in his dreams he had followed the ships as they set sail.
At the earliest opportunity, Raymond signed for the Merchant Navy and two months after his 14th birthday, signed aboard the SS Atlantis, which had been pressed into service as a hospital ship, evacuating the wounded from Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa.
For this, the boy, who worked in the ship’s galley, was awarded the Africa Star.
War was to make his next voyage out his last.
The SS Empire Morn was a merchantman, fitted out with a catapult from which a fighter aircraft could be launched: its job to give air defence to the convoy.
The Empire Morn, carrying essential war supplies and with Steed aboard, sailed from Milford Haven, bound first for Casablanca and then Gibraltar.
But at 09.45 hours on April 26, 1943, it struck a mine laid by a German submarine, just off the coast at Rabat, Morocco, blowing up the crew’s quarters. When a head count was taken, it was found that 21 men were missing, Steed among them. As the crippled vessel steamed for port, the wreckage was thoroughly searched and although no trace of most of the crewmen was ever found, Steed’s body was discovered near to that of an 18-year-old Ordinary Seaman.
The boy and the young man were buried with military honours at Ben M’Sik.
Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck, commander of British forces in the initial stages of the North African campaign, was later to be buried in the plot next to Raymond Steed.
Thus were the campaign’s most senior combatant and the most junior participant side by side in death.
The Empire Morn was repaired and sailed on until 1973, when she was scrapped at Santander, in Spain.
Mr Bale, who is chairman of the Newport branch and national vice-chairman of the Merchant Navy Association, began his research into the Steed story four years ago, enlisting the support of Newport City Council and of Paul Flynn MP, the MNA branch’s patron.
“The council has given the patch of ground upon which the memorial will stand and the memorial itself has been designed by Sebastian Boyeson, who created among many other sculptures in the city the Merchant Navy memorial in Cardiff Road,” he said.
“Newport’s story is bound up with the sea. The city is here because of the port.
“In all that long story, Raymond Steed’s is one of the most poignant chapters.”
More at this link:
www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/9424858.Memorial_will_commemorate_Newport_boy_seaman/