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Book Description
Bill Linskey was born in Jarrow, County Durham in 1921. During a desperately poor childhood he craved adventure, so as soon as possible he stowed away and so joined the Merchant Navy in 1938. His description of war in the Merchant Marine during WW11 is not the account from a stiff upper lip on the Bridge, but of the insecurity from the stokehole. This young Geordie tearaway tells of the terror of the German attacks against the Merchant Marine during the battles for the Atlantic and in the Arctic convoys.
From the Author
I got more adventure than I expected and I saw many men die. I was torpedoed in the Atlantic and with 28 survivors spent 7 days in an open lifeboat with no compass. Our pay was stopped the minute the ship SS Ashby was sunk. Later in the Arctic in the heavily attacked PQ18, our ship the SS Empire Beaumont was torpedoed. I was rescued again to spend a freezing winter in Russia. The next 'adventure' was when the American SS Ironclad was shipwrecked in the Russian White Sea. Many seamen had a much worse war than I, and I want to speak up for them. The death rate per capita of the Merchant Navy was the highest of any service; but because we were civilians, the wives and families received no compensation or pension for their lost men. The statistics of shipping losses were given, but no mention was ever made of the number of men who died. The ships and the tonnage were apparently more important and the ship owners received compensation for their lost ships and cargoes
It was 1974 before merchant seamen were recognised as having been on active service and those who could prove war-disablement were given pensions. That was too late for the many who had already died in poverty.
We had to laugh even if it was pretty black humour, because we were 'essential' to the war effort. Thus we were unable to leave a service that was not recognised as such. Truly a 'Catch 22' before Joseph Heller coined the phrase. The Merchant Navy is the 'Forgotten Navy'.
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