SIDNEY EDWARDS

[Administrator]

In Memory of
Able Seaman SIDNEY EDWARDS

S.S. A D.C. 1272 (United Kingdom)., Merchant Navy

who died age 37
on 11 January 1946

Son of Thomas Lewis Edwards and Mary Ann Edwards; husband of Irene Jane Edwards, of Canley, Coventry.

Remembered with honour
STRANRAER (GLEBE) CEMETERY

Commemorated in perpetuity by
the Commonwealth War Graves Commission

[Administrator]

Her Name Was A.D.C. 1272

The letters ADC stand for ‘Armaments Disposal Craft’. These post-war ex-LCT’s [Landing Craft Tank] vessels were run by the RASC but manned by civilian Merchant Navy personnel.

In 1946, ‘ADC 527’ and ‘ADC 1272’ were running between SILLOTH on the NW English coast and CAIRNRYAN in Loch Ryan, Scotland. Mostly they would dump their explosives in ‘Beaufort dyke’ a deep ravine in the North Passage between Scotland and Ireland.

In recent years fears have been expressed that too many explosives in the area are causing pollution of the waters.

Munitions

After the two world wars, large quantities of surplus munitions were dumped at sea. These munitions, which ranged from small arms to high explosives, were dumped at both charted and specially selected disposable sites.

The precise locations and nature of the munitions were often poorly documented.

Beaufort’s dyke, a deep trench which lies between Scotland and Northern Ireland, was one of the sites used extensively for sea disposal. This trench measures more than 50 km long and 3.5 km wide. The depth of the area and proximity to the coast made it an ideal location for a munitions dumping ground. At that time it was not an important fishing ground.

It is important first of all to set the issue of marine munitions disposal in its historical context. At the end of World War II, Britain was faced with the need to dispose of an enormous quantity of surplus munitions. This process had to be completed quickly and safely. Given the technological limitations of the time, it soon became clear that sea dumping was likely to be the only practicable method of disposing of the bulk of the munitions. Other nations arrived at the same conclusion and sea dumping became the internationally accepted method of munitions disposal during the 1940s.