This refers to Mr Cummins, WW1 & 2 veteran, who has just died:-

His next posting was to an armed cruiser, HMS Morea, which sailed from England to Sierra Leone escorting troop ships to East Africa. He was shocked on his first voyage out in June 1918. "We were in the Bristol Channel, quite well out to sea, and suddenly we began going through corpses," he recalled: "The Germans had sunk a British hospital ship, the Llandover Castle, and we were sailing through floating bodies. We were not allowed to stop - we just had to go straight through. It was quite horrific, and my reaction was to vomit over the edge. "

Most of the bodies were said to be those of nurses. Can anyone add anything to this? Phil B

Phil

See this previous thread:

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/i...p;hl=llandovery

Dave

Hi Phil, there's a good link here , cheers, Jon

Just found this , cheers, Jon

Thanks, gents. Was Patzig ever found? Phil B

Recent thread re Patzig here: http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/i...1&hl=patzig
For those who can read German, Egbert provided a link to the transcript of Patzig's trial (in absentia, I believe).

Mick

I was at an archaeological geophysics seminar yesterday. Wessex Archaeology have been doing survey work in the English Channel and have found U-86, Patzig's boat.

Apparently it was captured, used as a trials vessel and then scuttled by the RN. It appeared to be in lovely condition down there but don't think of raising here, it would be a conservation nightmare, as they have found with Holland 1.

German surrendered (turned over) all their U-boats at the end of the war. U 86 was indeed used as a trials vessels for a period by the Royal Navy.

The price of scrap metal was low in 1920/1921. The Royal Navy literally couldn't sell all the U-boats they then had for breaking, so a number were simply scuttled (dumped) in the Channel. The documentation on which boats were dumped where is rather sparse, as is that on which U-boats were lost while under tow postwar. This greatly complicates matters in sorting out what happened to U-boats sunk during the war from wreck discoveries, especially in the English Channel.

And yes, the pics of U 86 are quite impressive.

Best wishes,
Michael

Can anyone please direct me to any sources archival or otherwise where this particular incident of the Morea coming across wreckage and/or bodies of the sunken Llandovery Castle exists?
Tried accesing the National Archives search engine "global search" but could not find the 1918 log books for the ship. Do they exist?
Thanks,
John

The topic thread's title is misleading as the Llandovery Castle was NOT sunk in the Bristol Channel.
John
Toronto

came across a small book about this yesterday {8 pages} trying to think where!! is was on bookfinder not much money

regards john

HMHS Glenart Castle was sunk in the Bristol Channel

Click here & type Glenart Castle in to the search engine for details of some of the casualties


Chris

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml...2/12/db1201.xml

It actually said:-
On his first voyage out he saw, south-west of Fastnet Rock, the floating bodies of nurses from the Canadian hospital ship Llandovery Castle, which had been sunk by U-86 in one of the notorious atrocities of the war, when the survivors were fired on in their lifeboats. Cummins remembered the corpses being driven across the sea by their billowing aprons and skirts which had dried in the hot sun to form sails; but the risk of being torpedoed barred any recovery of the bodies.
Phil B

"driven across the sea by their billowing aprons and skirts".

A ghastly image.

Kath.

I found it hard to imagine that actually happening but it`s not something he`d be likely to mistake? Phil B

Thanks for this tantalizing possibly mythology or even outright propaganda rhetoric of a very sad event to start with. If the bodies had been in the water any length of time which we can only presume though no facts are given when the MOREA came across the wreckage or bodies how could the nurse's aprons and skirts be billowing? What might have happened is that one or two perhaps of the skirts or aprons floated away or in the process of abandoning ship became entangled or came loose not necessarily of course from the nurses and wrapped around some objects which ended up in the water. When the breeze eventually did come up (when the ship was sunk it was quite calm the water surface like a mirror) such clothing items may have billowed - eventually such debris after becoming water logged would mainly sink though it is possible that some wreckage did end up on some shores.
John
Toronto
Merry Christmas

for what the eye witness actually saw and in his own words see post # 3 here http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/i...showtopic=65778

Thanks Michael for this but I still have some questions about what he actually saw. He states that based on what he saw of the debris and bodies he threw up. Presuming that this was an awful memory that stayed with him presumably to the day he died is it possible that there are OTHER versions that he gave at DIFFERENT times to see if we can correlate commonalities in the different versions? Anyone know of newspaper interveiws with dates of publication of course(!) etc...?
Thanks all and
MERRY, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
John

“The Sinking of the H.M.H.S. Llandovery Castle” Ottawa: Director of Public Information (n.d. but 1918)
8 pages pamphlet (advertised for 35.00 US from a western Canadian book dealer)
I presume that the above is the item that you are referring to. It was of course a factual but contemporary Canadian propaganda piece.
John
MERRY CHRISTMAS!

This article about the sinking of the Llandovery Castle was published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal in August 1918. In includes a list of the medical staff (Physicians and Nursing Sisters) who lost their lives.

The Hospital Ship Llandovery Castle

Try this link it has the ships position at the time of sinking and some photos;

http://www.gwpda.org/naval/lcastl10.htm

Regards

Steve