The Laconia

[Pete Leonard (Bruno)]

Hi.Captain

maybe someone could correct me on this, but I always understood that 'sparks' were employed by Marconi and as such were entered as ' supernumery' in the ship's articles,and paid a token £1 per month by the Shipping Company.
Pete

[Captain Kong]

Maybe one of our Radio Officers could give us the answer.
I always thought they were employed by Marconi and sent to various ships, sometimes staying in a particular ship or company in a more or less permanent position. I dont know how the pay wasgiven.

[Jim Brady]

I remember when I was at sea the question used tobe asked "Who is the only officer on a ship" the answer was given "The Radio Officer".It was saidthe rest, Deck Officers signed on as Mates.As far as I was aware the Sparks was paid by Marconi,but was paid overtime by the Company he was sailing with when he carried out duties like Tallying cargo or cargo watch which I seen them do on many occassions.
Regards.
Jim.B.

[DeepSea]

Hi.Captain

maybe someone could correct me on this, but I always understood that 'sparks' were employed by Marconi and as such were entered as ' supernumery' in the ship's articles,and paid a token £1 per month by the Shipping Company.
Pete

I have a number of WWII Crew Agreements in my files and all Radio Officers signed on as such and are not recorded as supernumeraries.

[Mike Newell]

As an R/O employed by Marconi I signed articles in the usual way. I drew no money from whichever shipping company I was allotted to, but could draw £12 per month against my salary,which was paid by Marconi . Remuneration for any work, other than than that which I was employed for by Marconi, was paid to me by the Master.This was in the late 50's early 60's.

[E.Martin]

Hi E.Martin.
I would hazard a guess that the Cunard "Sparkies" were Radio Officers employed by Marconi and not by RN. ratings.

Should imagine you are right Captain Kong.
What I said was that Radio Operators or Sparkies in the Royal Navy were ratings their official title
Telegraphist,must be some old Matelot out there who can confirm this.

[Pete Leonard (Bruno)]

Thank you all for putting me straight on that one. That's another myth that bites the dust.
Cheers
Pete

[JRB]

Laconia Affair
Our father was the officer portrayed in the recent TV progamme, Thomas Mortimer(real name Thomas Buckingham), he hardly ever spoke about it, but the recent progamme and other information on the web has filled in a lot of gaps, interesting the previous blog about treatment by the French, although he was an officer and probably taken POW by the submarine, he sometimes bitterly mentioned how he was spat at by French when marched from one transort to another on his way to camp, seemed they thought, or had been told that he was a traiter, far from it of course, he tried to avoided capture and saved several lives. I had always thought this difficult to believe as I find the French warm and friendly people, but reading hear it is very possibly true. This is a terrible treatment of all these brave personel.

[Ivan Cloherty]

Laconia Affair
Our father was the officer portrayed in the recent TV progamme, Thomas Mortimer(real name Thomas Buckingham), he hardly ever spoke about it, but the recent progamme and other information on the web has filled in a lot of gaps, interesting the previous blog about treatment by the French, although he was an officer and probably taken POW by the submarine, he sometimes bitterly mentioned how he was spat at by French when marched from one transort to another on his way to camp, seemed they thought, or had been told that he was a traiter, far from it of course, he tried to avoided capture and saved several lives. I had always thought this difficult to believe as I find the French warm and friendly people, but reading hear it is very possibly true. This is a terrible treatment of all these brave personel.

JRB

Thank you for contacting the site, we hope some of the remarks made about uniforms etc on this site have not upset you. TheTV programme certainly did not do justice to the brave seamen of that era.

Unfortunately the area of France that your father had to travel through was Vichy France, supporters of the Germans (well outwardly at least for some of them) unfortunately I think your fathers travels through France were after Churchill ordered the sinking of the French Vichy controlled Naval fleet, whilst they were anchored in Marseille, the port under Vichy control, as Churchill did not want the fleet to fall into German hands. Over a thousand French seamen died in that attack so any Britishers captured byGerman/Vichy forces was going to be in for a hard time.It had nothing to do with your father being a traitor as he would have been under army armed escort whilst leaving the submarine, the guards would not have stopped the Vichy French in their actions, had he been under naval armed guard then he would have been afforded some protection

Yes today the French can be charming, but don't mention the war if you go to Marseille, ithe sinking of the fleet still rankles as they cannot(or do not want to) understand that in war some hard decisions have to be made, thank god we had the right man in office at that time.

Again thank you for visiting the site, I'm sure my shipmates will be delighted to have this direct contact with history

Kind regards

Ivan

[Bev Summerill]

They were also useing metric charts in those days it was the old fathom charts which were not coloured

Bev Summerill