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Saturday 7th May 2005 was the 60th Anniversary of my Father’s death at sea and my sister, Cecil Turnbull and I travelled to the Firth of Forth to lay flowers over the wreck of his ship.

He was George Anderson from Tudhoe, Spennymoor, a Merchant Navy Officer and at that time the Chief Engineer on the SS Avondale Park. He had previously survived the bombing of a ship at Bone during the North African landings of 1942; the Atlantic convoys and the Russian convoys — during one of which he was injured by machine gun fire and spent time in Russian hospital.

On the evening of 7th May 1945, which was after Germany had agreed and signed surrender terms, the Avondale Park left Methil on the Firth of Forth to join another convoy which at 8.30 pm sailed for the open sea. Three days earlier on the 4th May Grand Admiral Donitz, Hitler’s successor, had ordered that German U-Boats should immediately cease offensive action and surrender to Allied Forces.

However, at 10.40 pm on the 7th May 1945, U-Boat U2336 torpedoed and sank the SS Avondale Park and a Norwegian vessel Sneland, about 1 mile south of the Isle of May, before running for Germany and surrendering at Keil.

My Father and one other man William Harvey, were lost from the Avondale Park and it is ironic that the last British vessel lost in the war should be sunk in home waters, after the peace had been declared and only 31 miles from Edinburgh City Centre.
Disclaimer: submitted by Angela Stobbart at Spennymoor Library on behalf of Pamela Harper (nee Anderson)

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