大象传媒

Henry Edward Kirkman, served in the Merchant Navy convoys going to Australasia, America, Africa and Europe. His son, Robert, recalls that "Harry" once had a string of service medals.

He was awarded:
The Pacific Star, for Australia and New Zealand, a medal which is now very collectable.
The Atlantic Star for the USA - New York and California
The Africa Star for North Africa, Algeria etc.
The Europe Star
The 1939-1945 War Medal given to all services.

The convoys suffered huge losses from the attacks of the German U-boats and few survived the repeated long hauls in slow coal fired merchant ships.

Harry鈥檚 ship was torpedoed and sunk and fortunately he survived. He had been always reluctant to say much about his experiences. He had seen too many of the horrors of war particularly the terrible sight of his shipmates suffering in the burning oil in the sea.

A recollection of Harry's brother, my father, Sydney, was that Harry's ship was struck off the coast of Ireland by a torpedo. When rescued Harry went on shore leave for nine days and came to visit Syd, who was then living in Fortnam Road, looking for some long deserved and relative peace. However, during an air raid a flying bomb dropped on a local police station and wrecked a number of adjacent houses, including Harry's own house.

Harry鈥檚 guardian angel must have been working overtime for him to not only have survived the sinking of his ship but also the having the good fortune of not being at home when it was blown apart.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.