UNSUNG HEROES:

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UNSUNG HEROES - SINKING WITHOUT TRACE?

UNLOCKING HISTORY AND HERITAGE THROUGH THE ARTS

LINK 1: www.keystage-company.co.uk/Keystage_Arts_and_Heritage_Company/Project_Portfolio/Entries/2012/10/2_UNSUNG_HEROES_-_SINKING_WITHOUT_TRACE.html

LINK 2: www.keystage-company.co.uk/

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WWII MERCHANT NAVY: UNSUNG HEROES:

Collecting, recording and preserving the stories of the brave men and women who served in the Merchant Navy between 1939 -1945.

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Educational Resources:

The British Merchant Navy was a term that applied to the employees of British shipping companies whose vessels ranged from the sleekest ocean liners to obsolete tramp steamers. Merchant seamen already included contingents of Black, Asian and Arab sailors and the British Merchant Fleet was swelled between 1939 and 1945 by the vital addition of ships and crew from the Nazi occupied countries of Europe. Around 30,000 merchant seamen perished yet their major contribution to Allied victory in campaigns spanning the globe has often gone unmarked. This timely project seeks to collect and publish the reminiscences of veterans where this is still possible. An additional component has been to encourage the study of the Merchant Navy during the Second World War in schools and other settings.

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THE MERCHANT NAVY IN

WARTIME PROPAGANDA:


During the Second World War the seamen of the Merchant Navy were lauded as tough and heroic – “the shining courage of the men of the Merchant Navy“ was a standard phrase in the editorials of The Seaman, the Journal of the National Union of Seamen. Members of the royal family, the Archbishop of Canterbury, politicians, admirals and ship owners regularly echoed these sentiments. Labour cabinet Minister Ernest Bevin said, “When a seaman torpedoed nine or 10 times comes ashore with his bag on his shoulder and then sails again, this is courage”. The same message, repeated many times by many people was also echoed in the press with unanimity. An editorial in The Times of November 1941 called for a greater recognition for merchant seamen. “In the sustained endurance of our volunteer merchant seamen lies our hope of victory.” The behaviour of thoughtless citizens who wasted bread was contrasted in the Daily Mirror of January 1942 with the courage of merchant seamen who risked and lost their lives bringing home cargoes of grain.

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THE MERCHANT NAVY

DURING THE BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC:


“The Battle of the Atlantic was the dominating factor all through the war. Never for one moment could

we forget that every thing happening everywhere, on land, at sea or in the air depended ultimately on its

outcome.”

Winston Churchill

As an island, Great Britain did not produce enough food or raw materials to either feed its own population or maintain

war production. Historically it was dependent on sea-borne trade with the British Empire and other nations carried

by British Merchant ships that still amounted to about a third of all trading vessels afloat in 1939. This mercantile

dominance was protected in times of peace and war by the Royal Navy. The British authorities had successfully

defeated the small U-boats of 1914 - 1918 which had generally operated in coastal waters and they were confident

that they could do so again. Despite this confidence on Sunday, 3 September 29 the British passenger liner Athenia was

torpedoed without warning by U-230, one of the 56 submarines at the disposal of German Admiral Donitz. This attack

on an unarmed passenger liner with the loss of 118 lives initially embarrassed the German government but was the

first maritime casualty of a campaign in the North Atlantic that was waged for nearly six years.

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THE MERCHANT NAVY IN CONVOYS TO MALTA, 1939 - 1943:


“You may be sure we regard Malta as one of the master keys of the British Empire”

Winston Churchill to the Governor of Malta. 6th June 1941

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THE MERCHANT NAVY IN UK COASTAL CONVOYS:

Coastal convoys’ is a term that refers to the organization of merchant ships into convoys for the purposes of moving essential war material around the coastline of Great Britain. The sea was a standard arterial route around the country ‘A river around England’ and neither road nor rail had sufficient capacity without the use of maritime transport.

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BLACK, ASIAN AND ARAB SEAMEN IN THE BRITISH MERCHANT NAVY:

It was commonplace for British merchant ships, apart from those working on UK coastal convoys, to recruit a wide diversity of crewmen. After the success of the Blitzkrieg in Spring 1940 ships and nationals from European countries occupied by the Nazis were recruited into the British Merchant Navy. For example, Arctic convoy crews were frequently drawn from experienced Norwegian sailors. In his memoirs “ Flying the Red Duster “, concerning a 1940 transatlantic voyage, Jewish veteran Morris Beckman records that as a young radio officer he did not experience anti-Semitism as such. Indeed the main challenge to his cultural identity was to resist the temptation offered by eating bacon with the rest of the crew. Non-Europeans however faced greater challenges on British merchant ships. Many were employed on a colonial basis, not necessarily sharing the patriotism of their British counterparts and certainly not the pay.

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THE BRITISH MERCHANT NAVY IN ARCTIC CONVOYS, 1941 - 1945




“The worst journey in the world.”

Winston Churchill

In the early part of 1941, having failed to defeat the British, Hitler planned his surprise attack upon the Soviet Union. Stalin stuck strictly to the terms of the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939, continuing to supply Germany with grain and oil up to the very day of the Nazi invasion, despite urgent warnings from intelligence sources that Hitler was about to strike. Churchill claimed that his new allies “…first impulse and lasting policy was to demand all succour from Great Britain and her empire... .They do not hesitate to appeal in urgent and strident terms to harassed and struggling Britain to send them ammunitions of which our armies are so short.”

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THE BRITISH MERCHANT NAVY:

- EVERYDAY LIFE DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR

THE CULTURE OF EMPLOYMENT

The majority of Merchant Navy crews were not a true ships company in the naval sense. Merchant ships were commercial vessels where men were hired to do a particular job and usually lived on board in the company of their own rank. There were no common rituals that helped to unite a crew on a warship such as mustering the crew for announcements (even the declaration of war in 1939), the distribution of pay or for religious services. Before the war, merchant ships never sailed in the company of other vessels, and rarely sailed twice with the same crew. According to veteran Dick Playfer it was essential for a merchant seamen “to be a hard grafter” which “earns one respect.. Also you had to master certain things, you must be able to tie the right hitches in the right situations, you must know certain kinds of knots.” Ranks took pride in showing mastery of their role by being able to excel in certain tasks associated with it, such as bread making among cooks.

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