大象传媒

My Grandfather was in the Merchant Navy and his ship, the SS Melmore Head left England on December 19th 1942 as part of the Convoy ONS 154. The convoy comprised of 45 merchant ships escorted by the Canadian Royal Navy and was over five miles wide and 1.5 miles deep. The convoy was attacked in the early hours on 27th December and four ships were torpedoed. On the night of the 28th December, the convoy was flanked by nineteen U-Boats in two wolfpacks. My Grandfathers ship sunk within two minutes with the loss of 14 crew members including my Grandfather who was only aged 32. The youngest to perish on the ship was 18 years old. Fourteen ships were torpedoed/sunk and carried 1,021 men. Of these, 513 men died.
For many years our family had no real experience of how my Grandfather died or where his memorial was. My father was only a small child and his mother did not talk about it. It's with great gratitude to a Mr G Mumford that we have been able to piece together what happened during the Convoy ONS 154 and to be able to finally pay respect.

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