Authors: Murdo Morrison
An officer, George Graydon, who served on the
Zamalek
during World War II, graciously offered to read the portions of the manuscript that related to the arctic convoys and the operation of the rescue ship Izmir. His comments were very helpful and have contributed to making these chapters as accurate as possible. I am also grateful to my brother Charles Morrison who has accumulated a great deal of information about rescue ships in general and the
Zamalek
in particular. He is the source of information about her pre-war history and conversion for use as a rescue ship. His help was also useful in providing background information on shipyards and shipbuilding.
In the story the convoy to Russia is never given a designation although some readers may recognize that the fictional events were inspired by those of the actual convoys PQ17 and PQ18. The attitudes ascribed to various merchant seamen regarding the Royal Navy should not be construed as my personal opinion. It would not have been unusual for some, or even many, merchant seamen at the time to react in the manner portrayed. Therefore, some of the fictional ones do too. The departure of the main escort force from convoy PQ17 has been a source of controversy for many years and there is no intention of reawakening it here in the fictional break up of the unnamed convoy in this story.
Every effort has been made to accurately describe convoy operations in Arctic waters in 1942.
The route taken by the fictional convoy mirrors that of convoy PQ 17, which left from Hvalfiordur, Iceland on June 27, 1942. The attacks on the convoy reflect real tactics and events. Kptlt. Max-Martin Teichert was the commander of the German U-boat U-456, which would have been operating in northern waters in this general time period. The U-456 was a type VII C U-boat commissioned on September 18, 1941. It is thought likely that the real U-boat sank in the northern Atlantic in 1943.
Although all of the characters and events in the story are fictional, some of the adventures that befall the three merchant seamen in the book are inspired by the wartime experiences of several relatives. My grandfather, Charles Burnett, according to family lore, was stranded at Dunkirk, though few details have carried down to the present day. I have taken the liberty of taking those few memories and building a fictional story around them.
Researching ship arrivals and departures at Dunkirk, I found that the ship
Spinel
was a good match for the few known circumstances about my grandfather’s story. The
Spinel
, a small coastal vessel of about 750 tons, arrived in Dunkirk on May 24, 1940 and was reported lost on May 25. The
Spinel
was owned by the William Robertson Company, often known as the Gem Line because its ships were named after precious stones. Mentioning the name of the ship to relatives brought the response that they thought this was indeed my grandfather’s ship.
For a long time the location of my grandfather’s service records was unknown. Interestingly, when the manuscript was nearing completion, they were rediscovered. Following the death of a relative, her apartment was cleared out. A number of family papers were discovered in a cloth bag in a closet.
Every merchant seaman was required to maintain a booklet called a Continuous Certificate of Discharge. This recorded their ships and dates of service. Two of these survive from my grandfather. The first contains only one entry showing service on a ship named the
Felspar
in July of 1935. The second booklet shows his service record beginning with an entry in August, 1941. There is no mention of the
Spinel
in either document. However, in the back of the first document is an Immigration Officer stamp for Dover dated May 28, 1940. This appears to be consistent with him reentering Britain in the correct time period for a return from France. There is no corresponding service entry for that time period, which is unusual. Unless other records appear the reason for this will likely remain unknown.
The timeline of events witnessed by Charlie Burns during his stay on the beach is based on historical records and eyewitness accounts. Every ship (except the
Jasper
) mentioned in the Dunkirk chapters was a real ship. Ship movements occur as they did during the actual evacuation. The
Prague
left Dunkirk under the circumstances described in the story. My grandfather reportedly left on the
Royal Daffodil
. I am greatly indebted to a book titled “
B.E.F. Ships before, at and after Dunkirk
” by John de S. Winser, published by The World Ship Society in 1999, which includes a wealth of detail about such matters.
The
Empire Tiger
was a real ship and was lost under the circumstances described in the story.
The ship was built in 1919 at the Todd Drydock and Construction Corp. in the Seattle-Tacoma area in the United States. Originally named
Orcus
and later
Coya
she was transferred to Great Britain in 1940 as the
Empire Tiger
. Donald McIntyre’s lucky departure from that ship is based on the real life experience of my father who left her at the conclusion of the one round trip he made on her. It sank on its next voyage.
My father, Donald Morrison, was third engineer on the
Zamalek
from early 1942 until 1944 and served on several other ships during World War Two. Unfortunately no longer with us, my brother and I have drawn on our memories of his stories. We are also fortunate to have many of his personal papers and service records. At the end of the war he served as a volunteer on the block ship
Vera Radcliffe
at Normandy. I have used the name of the real ship
Vera Radcliffe
in the story to pay tribute to the largely unappreciated contribution of the Merchant Marine in the Normandy invasion.
The
Vera Radcliffe
was built in Stockton in 1925 for the Winbourne Steamship Company. Requisitioned in March of 1944 she was used as a block ship during the D-Day invasion in the Gooseberry 4 section of Juno Beach, Courseulles. In the story the ship is scuttled in the correct historical location and context.
My uncle Walter Campbell also served on coastal convoys. Incredibly, given their adventures, all of my relatives survived the war. I have used several names that resemble those of family members out of pure sentimentality.
The moon and sky conditions described for specific dates in the story reflect those that would have occurred on the actual dates. The rough weather conditions described in a segment of the Dunkirk chapters reflect actual events. In the vicinity of Novaya Zemlya in July, air temperatures would not typically exceed 55 F. It was not unusual, therefore, to find the eastern reaches of the Matochkin Strait ice bound (as reported in 1942) or to find significant areas of floating ice in northern waters. The opening night of the blitz in Clydebank was a clear moonlight night as described. Every effort was made to recreate actual conditions where possible.
Ship handling, engine type and operation are as in the originals. Again, sincere thanks are due to my brother, Charles Morrison, who supplemented my research by explaining such arcane topics as reversing engines, “warming through” an engine, and the operation and regulation of steam engines. I would also like to mention the work of Project Liberty Ship in Baltimore, MD, USA, dedicated to the preservation of one of only two known surviving liberty ships, the
S.S. John W. Brown
.
The other is the
S.S. Jeremiah O’Brien
in San Francisco, CA, USA. To experience the engine room of a World War II era cargo ship and to view one of the few remaining working triple expansion steam engines in action, I signed up for one of the
John W. Brown’s
wonderful "Voyage into History" trips down the Chesapeake Bay. The sound, smell and ambience of the Brown’s engine room helped me greatly in appreciating what the period engine room experience was like. To watch the expert ship handling involved when a World War II era merchant ship left the quay at Baltimore (as I know my father must have) was a wonderful experience.
No fiction can fully do justice to the terrible nights of March 13
th
and 14
th
1941 when the town of Clydebank, Kilmun Street in Maryhill, Glasgow, and other areas throughout the region sustained heavy damage from German bombing. There are many real life stories of suffering and sacrifice that have come down to us from people who were there as well as newspaper and other accounts from that time. While the characters and events in these episodes in the story are fictional, I have tried to remain true to the historical events.
Scenes described in the story are based on actual photographs of the damage obtained from the archive held at the Clydebank Public Library.
I visited Clydebank and its library in early 2005.The basement of the library where the archive is kept was the Civil Defense Command Post during the bombing. My thanks to Mary Francis of the Clydebank Public Library who provided valuable assistance in finding historical material in the library’s archives. Although contiguous with Glasgow, Clydebank is a separate community with its own rich history of which its residents are rightly proud.
I thought at first that few would believe Ella’s fictional attempt to reach her daughter in Clydebank during German bombing until I read the personal accounts of people who made very similar journeys home. The determination to reach loved ones is very strong. The story attempts to pay tribute to many such courageous acts by individuals on those two terrible nights.
Two additional useful resources are “
Untold Stories, Remembering Clydebank in Wartime
”, Clydebank Life Story Group, Clydeside Press, and “
The Clydebank Blitz
”, by I.M.M. MacPhail, West Dunbartonshire Libraries and Museums.
The incident at Yarrow’s shipyard is based on an actual event that appears to be little known outside of the community of Scotstoun. It is hard to find historical references to it but it was well known to the workers and their families. My father worked in the shipyard for most of the remainder of his working life after the war. In a later period, my brother also worked in the yard and remembers seeing a commemorative plaque to the workers killed in the bombing during his time there.
The police reports from the Kilmun Street area are taken from an excellent resource titled “T
he Blitz on Clydeside
”, 1996, published by the Glasgow City Council. This is a collection of copies of original materials including public records and newspaper accounts. When characters read newspapers or hear radio broadcasts in the story, the text is taken from the actual newspapers or broadcasts. The men and women in the story experience the war in real time, as they would have in life. Events occurring in Glasgow, including what was playing at the theaters or sports stadiums are also based on the real history.
In my opinion, there are too few books that accurately depict the working class of Glasgow and even fewer that tell their story from the perspective of one who grew up in their midst. Of course, there is no single story that could represent the totality of the city. Everyone experiences Glasgow in their own unique way. I have attempted to depict the world I grew up in and the people who inhabited it.
For information about life in wartime Glasgow, the bombing, and the neighborhoods of Maryhill and Scotstoun in World War II, I am indebted to several family members, my mother Ella Morrison, and aunts Betty Campbell and Margaret Burnett. They provided many details of everyday life from the perspective of having lived through the time period.
The experience of the Allied merchant seaman has also been sorely neglected. Although civilians, they were in harm’s way and served in all of the major theaters of the war, suffering severe losses in proportion to their numbers. Their importance in supplying the goods that were essential to the conduct of the war was enormous. Although a work of fiction, every attempt has been made to accurately portray the world they inhabited. I am very proud of my family’s involvement in that service and deeply grateful to all who served.
The role of the rescue ships is hardly ever spoken off in the history of World War II. Their presence at the rear of a convoy, ready to pick up survivors, must have been a comfort to mariners on the ships ahead. They were often required to stop in dangerous waters to bring survivors aboard. I hope that this story will help bring them to the place of recognition they deserve.
Finally, a word about the Captain of the
Zamalek
, Captain Owen Charles Morris. Born in Pwllheli Wales in 1905, Captain Morris served as Master of the
Zamalek
for over four wartime years while the ship picked up the largest number of survivors of any Allied rescue ship in World War II. For his service, Captain Morris was awarded a very deserved Distinguished Service Order (DSO).
George Graydon, who served under Captain Morris, told me that he was very highly regarded by the ship’s crew. Many stories are told about this remarkable man but we will leave those for another time. Suffice to say that, while Captain Llewellyn is not intended to be a clone of Captain Morris, I was very mindful of his many fine qualities when creating the fictional character. However, I doubt if fiction could ever match up to the real man.