Post by Administrator on Nov 18, 2013 22:28:40 GMT
Merchant Navy vet lobbies for Ocean War Graves designation for seamen lost at war:
Shortly before midnight on May 7, 1945, an Allied convoy headed from Hull, England, to Belfast, Ireland, came under attack by U-2336, in what was the German submarine’s only war patrol of the Second World War. The U-boat claimed two merchant navy ships that night: first sinking the Sneland I, a Norwegian vessel, then the Avondale Park, a Canadian freighter. Seven seamen died on the Sneland I, while the Canadian cargo ship Avondale Park took two of its British crew down with her as she sank: chief engineer George Anderson and donkey man William Harvey, who were standing watch below when the torpedo struck.
The two had nearly made it safely through the war. News of Germany’s expected unconditional surrender had already spread around the globe, and, in anticipation of her husband’s return, Harvey’s wife had decorated the outside of their house with white bunting. Less than an hour after the Avondale Park was torpedoed, the war in Europe, and with it the Battle of the Atlantic, officially ended. No more Allied ships were sunk by German U-boats in the campaign, and Anderson and Harvey became asterisked endnotes of the six-year conflict.
Today, the two seamen remain in their ship, in 55 metres of water in the Firth of Forth, sentinels silently keeping watch over a dark and largely unchanging grave.
LINK
Shortly before midnight on May 7, 1945, an Allied convoy headed from Hull, England, to Belfast, Ireland, came under attack by U-2336, in what was the German submarine’s only war patrol of the Second World War. The U-boat claimed two merchant navy ships that night: first sinking the Sneland I, a Norwegian vessel, then the Avondale Park, a Canadian freighter. Seven seamen died on the Sneland I, while the Canadian cargo ship Avondale Park took two of its British crew down with her as she sank: chief engineer George Anderson and donkey man William Harvey, who were standing watch below when the torpedo struck.
The two had nearly made it safely through the war. News of Germany’s expected unconditional surrender had already spread around the globe, and, in anticipation of her husband’s return, Harvey’s wife had decorated the outside of their house with white bunting. Less than an hour after the Avondale Park was torpedoed, the war in Europe, and with it the Battle of the Atlantic, officially ended. No more Allied ships were sunk by German U-boats in the campaign, and Anderson and Harvey became asterisked endnotes of the six-year conflict.
Today, the two seamen remain in their ship, in 55 metres of water in the Firth of Forth, sentinels silently keeping watch over a dark and largely unchanging grave.
LINK