John Reid and the SS Dwinsk
John Reid and the SS Dwinsk
This is the only photograph my mother had of her father. It fits in a locket which belonged to my grandmother. The sailor’s uniform suggests he may have been at the HMS Pembroke land base in Chatham. As yet I have been unable to discover when that might have been. (own collection)
John Reid was my Grandfather. My blog begins with the final part of his story which is where my knowledge of his life and family started. I will write more about his time in Dublin and the other ships he sailed on while living in Liverpool, but the first few entries will be about the final voyage of the SS Dwinsk and the other men who are remembered alongside him on the Tower Hill memorial.
John Reid’s name on the memorial at Tower Hill in London. (own collection)
John Reid was discharged from RMS Mauretania on 9 April 1918[1] and signed to the SS Dwinsk as an able seaman the next day. He would earn £11/10- each month and did not have to be aboard ship until 8am on 12 April[2]. My grandfather had two more nights at home, in Bootle, with his pregnant wife Lucy and their three-year-old daughter, Mary.
The SS Dwinsk was part of the Cunard Line, sub-contracted to the American government to transport soldiers to France. On the 28 April the ship was in New York. A manifest of crew members aboard records John was five foot nine and weighed one hundred and forty-nine pounds; he also had a tattoo of a ship on his left hand[3]. Details like these are delightful! No doubt, the ship was in port for a couple of days, as she had been in Liverpool, and maybe the crew were able to leave the ship for a while. Once loaded with soldiers they would have sailed for France.
By the 18 June the Dwinsk was returning from Brest in ballast. Four hundred miles from Bermuda, the nearest land, she was steaming ahead at thirteen knots. It was a fine clear morning with just a slight breeze. At 9.20am one of the five lookouts on duty with the first officer, Robert Jones Pritchard, noticed the track of a torpedo heading toward them. It was only two hundred yards away. The helm was pulled down hard, but the ship was hit on the port side at hold number 4.
Just a few months earlier Henry Nelson, master of the Dwinsk, had commanded the SS War Baron which sank in just 3 minutes. Remembering that, and concerned for the safety of his crew, Nelson ordered his men to abandon ship at 9.30am. The Mercantile Marine Award committee later judged the crew may have taken to the lifeboats too early, but it is easy to see how his previous experience would have influenced Nelson.
The submarine, later identified as U-151, surfaced after the men had taken to the lifeboats. Nelson told the inquiry the submarine went alongside the 2nd officer Joseph Coppin’s lifeboat and took him aboard. Gunshots were fired at the Dwinsk, which caused a fire and she finally sank at 11.20am. Coppin was returned to his lifeboat where my grandfather and the others in lifeboat seven would have no doubt been waiting anxiously for his return.
Pritchard, the first officer, reported a four-funnelled ship came in sight and fired five shots at the submarine, which submerged. The ship then zigzagged away[4].
The ship was the USS Von Steuben, captained by Yates Stirling who later wrote about the incident in his autobiography. He stated the submarine fired at the Von Steuben but thankfully the torpedo narrowly missed. He then confirmed Pritchard’s account by recording he ordered five depth charges to be fired at the submarine. Stirling saw lifeboats under sail but believed them to be empty. He stated the captain of the British ship ordered his men to lie down in the lifeboat to avoid being seen[5] although this did not come to light in the British enquiry. The first officer Pritchard was the only one to mention the American ship.
Pritchard also stated when the submarine eventually surfaced the U-151 came after the lifeboats which were moving away from the site of the sinking and asked if they knew the name of the ship which had appeared[6]. The submarine crew, it would seem, recognised the Von Steuben which before capture had been the Kronprinz Wilhelm of the North German Lloyd Line. No doubt destroying the Von Steuben would have been a great triumph for the U-151. Thankfully the ship, returning from France overcrowded with wounded soldiers, women and children, reached port safely.
Stirling also recorded in his autobiography that all the men from the Dwinsk were rescued[7]. This, of course, is not true. Six of the seven lifeboats were eventually rescued; however, 16-year-old Eugene Corri was lost overboard from the first officer’s boat and lifeboat seven under the leadership of Joseph Coppin was never recovered.
This entry has relied on historical documents and an autobiography to retell the story of the sinking of the SS Dwinsk. The next instalment will use newspaper accounts to recount the survivors’ experiences in the lifeboats and their eventual rescue.
[1] Board of Trade (Great Britain) 1918-19 Crew list for RMS Mauretania. Ship’s Number: 124093. Collection: Registry of Shipping and Seamen: Agreements and Crew Lists, Series III. Ref: BT100/351. Kew, London: The National Archives.
[2] Board of Trade (Great Britain) 1918. Crew list for SS Dwinsk. Ship’s Number: 142312. Collection: Registry of Shipping and Seamen: Agreements and Crew Lists, Series II Ref: BT99/3466. Kew, London: The National Archives.
[3] Travel records. (USA). New York 28 April 1918. REID John. Arrival on SS Dwinsk from Barry, Wales. Ship’s manifest of crew https://heritage.statueofliberty.org/ accessed 25 November 2020.
[4] Board of Navy and Admiralty (Great Britain) 1918. North America: German submarines, Volume I. Inquiry into sinking of SS Dwinsk 18 June 1918. Historical Section: Records used for the official First World War. Ref: ADM137/1617. Kew, London: The National Archives.
[5] Stirling Yates (1939) Sea Duty. New York: C P Putnam’s Son p.173. https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/People/Yates_Stirling/Sea_Duty/11*.html : accessed 25th November 2020
[6] Board of Navy and Admiralty (Great Britain) 1918. North America: German submarines, Volume I. Inquiry into sinking of SS Dwinsk 18 June 1918. Historical Section: Records used for the official First World War. Ref: ADM137/1617. Kew, London: The National Archives.
[7] Stirling Yates (1939) Sea Duty. New York: C P Putnam’s Son p.173. https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/People/Yates_Stirling/Sea_Duty/11*.html : accessed 25 November 2020.