Dear Sir, In your November 2016 edition you highlighted how stringencies of regulations meant that a number of those involved in air combat over the UK did not qualify for Battle of Britain accreditation. A while ago, whilst researching some family history, I came across another quirky anomaly. This time, seemingly applied to a possibly sizeable number of merchant seamen lost at sea in the First World War and perhaps subsequently.
My grandfather’s ship, MV Arabis, was torpedoed by U-54 and sank within four minutes on its return voyage from Sfax on 16 September 1917. Arabis, under Admiralty Orders at the time, had evidently joined a convoy in Gibraltar a few days earlier where she had also embarked four “distressed seamen” for transit back to the UK. They were some of the surviving crew from the sinking of the SS Winlaton, torpedoed by Kptlt Wolfgang Steinbauer’s UB-48 off Cape Spartel on 23 August 1917. In that attack, two of their shipmates were killed: Leo Frane, a fireman, originally from Lisbon, and Gysbertus van der Jagt, another fireman, born in Rotterdam. The Winlaton’s master was taken POW; the remaining survivors seemingly left to their fate.
The 3,270 ton collier Win…
