In memory of a fallen merchant seaman
Tuesday 11 November 2008 at 14:13 UTC
This being Remembrance Day and all, it seems like the perfect opportunity for a blogospheric commemoration of familial war loss.
I’ve only recently come across this photo, which shows my late grandmother Mary, who died just a few years ago, and Charles John Sedgemore, the biological grandfather I never knew. In fact, my mother never knew him either, as he died a month before she was born. Mary went on to marry John Boult, the memory of whom I and the Sedgemore family hold dear.
Grandad Sedgemore was a merchant seaman from Devon who lost his life at the very beginning the Second World War. His ship, the armed cruiser HMS Rawalpindi, was sunk in the Iceland-Faroe passage on 23 November 1939 by the German battlecruisers Gneisenau and Scharnhorst. Just 48 of the Rawalpindi’s crew of 276 survived the attack.
It was a failure of British military intelligence that led to the sinking of the Rawalpindi. The German warships had previously been sited in the area, but for some reason no action was taken.
Grandad’s jumper would raise a smile these days; the 1930s was such a very different age.
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Tuesday 11 November 2008 at 16:46 UTC
I remember you telling me this story when we were in the Maritime Museum in Greenwich. I think we were even standing in front of a model of the Rawalpindi, which added to the drama.
Quite a story.
And Grandad Sedgemore’s jumper has had me smiling all afternoon.
Tuesday 11 November 2008 at 17:06 UTC
Indeed, John.
I’ve had to change the casualty figures since I posted this earlier today. There appears to be a discrepancy between figures published by various sources.
Also, maybe someone will challenge the assertion that British intelligence failed to act on reports of German battle cruisers in the North Atlantic. As far as I know, that story is reliable. However, some of the blame for the sinking of the Rawalpindi may lie with Edward Coverley Kennedy (father of Ludovic), the captain of the merchant vessel who insisted on fighting when hopelessly outgunned, and after being offered a chance to surrender by the Germans. Kennedy had informed the Admiralty about the position of the German warships.
Accounts of the event can be found here and here. The first of these is from Royston Alfred Leadbetter, one of the 48 lucky survivors.