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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Odilia Roberts from the Derby Action Team on behalf of Josephine Fuller and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

Norman Donovan, born 1914, was a Merchant Navy Officer and made 32 Atlantic crossings in convoys carrying oil from the USA to Britain.

On the night of 11 October 1940 he was Third Officer on the ship ‘Manchester Commerce’ in the convoy ‘Sidney’. At 9.00pm Norman was on the bridge. The weather was good and all around were other Merchant Navy ships all keeping in broad formation with each other and shadowed by a guard of Royal Navy ships. There was a huge explosion nearby and the next ship which was the Norwegian tanker Davenger had been torpedoed in the engine room and was about to collide with Norman’s ship. The two vessels cleared by feet to spare and within 5 minutes the Davenger was almost underwater. One crewman ran through the water clutching a torch and trying to get a lifeboat. The ships carrying oil usually blew up but she did not. There were strict orders never to stop for rescue and the ships sailed on but scattering as they went and heading for England as fast as possible.

Years later Norman found out that 17 men from the Davenger died but 12 survived and sailed in a lifeboat. Seven days later they landed in Eire, sick but alive.

The next night 2 more tankers in the convoy were sunk and the following another one lost. Another crew managed to row to Ireland but many died. The U Boat was U59 captained by Jochin Matz.

After a brief stay in England Norman was off to the Atlantic again and so continued until 1945.

He found on his return home in late October 1940 that his retired father, born 1876, George Wilson Donovan, a Merchant Navy Officer was now manning a lighthouse in the mouth of the Tees, doing his bit all through the war in spite of age and angina.

N.B. These Merchant Navy sailors were never paid if their ships were sunk. They also had, at first, been refused war medals but decency prevailed and the MN got their medals in the end.

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