September The Third - MERCHANT NAVY DAY

[Keith at Tregenna]

Merchant Navy Day Wreath Laying 2018
03 September 2018, 02:00PM

Wreath Laying in the Sanctuary

Melbourne.

Shrine Representatives:

Shrine Governor Major Maggie More RFD
Shrine Governor Commander Terry Makings AM

https://www.shrine.org.au/Visit-the-...ing-your-visit

[Keith at Tregenna]

MERCHANT NAVY DAY

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Merchant Navy Day
03 Sep 2018

In 2010, the New Zealand Government announced that they would join Britain and other commonwealth countries to commemorate those who served in the Merchant Navy in the Second World War.

The date chosen was 3 September as this observes the sinking of the first British merchant ship in 1939, just hours after the war was declared.

We would like to invite you to commemorate those who served and lost their lives in the Merchant Navy during the Second World War from the first day to the last.

The service will take approximately one hour, which includes the laying of the wreath at the museum’s Merchant Navy Memorial Plaque.

Following the service, there will be luncheon put on by the Maritime Museum and a wreath will be laid at sea in the museum’s marina from the vessel Nautilus.

When: Monday 3 September 2018, 11.00am - Monday 3 September 2018, 12.00pm

Where: NZ Maritime Museum, Princes Wharf, Viaduct Harbour, Auckland Central

Merchant Navy Day | OurAuckland

[Chris Thompson]

I don't do poems, I am an engineer not a wordsmith, but those of our generation have been so lucky that we have lived without the global wars of our parents and grandparents, we have never had the feeling of abject terror that so many before us must have gone through as they went about their chosen trade. On rememberance day great respect and tribute is paid and rightly so to those of the armed services so the Merchant Navy Day is and should be a tribute to so many who served on at best lightly armed merchant ships.

[Keith at Tregenna]

Fortunately, the Merchant Navy Association has a poet in Joe Earl.

There is much of his work on this site.

Joe has helped me much with his pen.

MERCHANT NAVY STAMP OF APPROVAL

Defeat was mighty close in the second greatest war,
Five thousand ships with cargos sent to the ocean floor,
Merchant men were slaughtered sustaining our lifeline,
The Country issued ration books so desperate was the time.

A crisis at the Home Front, foodstuff very short,
Rations and provisions scarcely making port,
Convoys steaming steadfast under Red Ensigns,
Faced demise from U-boats, the bombers and the mines.

There were many heroes on land and sea and air,
And thirty thousand Seamen gave their lives out there,
Transporting reinforcements, resources and supplies,
And fuel to fly the spitfires fighting in the skies.

Perhaps we should commend them by illustrating stamps,
With the freighters and the liners, the tankers and the tramps,
It would be a special tribute, rather overdue,
To mariners who manned them and a way to say thank you.

J.S.Earl Nov. 2009

JOE'S MERCHANT NAVY STAMP OF APPROVAL:

Assisted much in the MN gaining the Royal Mail Stamp of Approveal.

Stamp of approval at last for Merchant Navy and Barry seamen | Barry And District News

Royal Mail unveils stamps featuring historic trading ships to commemorate the Merchant Navy | Daily Mail Online

More of Joe's MN poems at: http://joesverse.simplesite.com/160596375

Keith.

[Keith at Tregenna]

mn40380116_2577826119110436_8507285153343602688_n.jpg

[Rodney Mills]

Merchant Navy day falls on our Labor day, a national holiday and a flag day, so this year I will fly the Red Duster beneath the Stars and Stripes on my flag staff.


Respects to our fallen shipmates, Rodney in South Carolina.

[Keith at Tregenna]

New Zealand Maritime Museum

All are welcome to our Merchant Navy Day service this Monday 3rd September, to commemorate those who served in the Merchant Navy in the Second World War. Service begins at 11am in The Maritime Room, click below to find out more.

https://www.maritimemuseum.co.nz/merchant-navy-day-0

[Keith at Tregenna]

THE RED ENSIGN MEN

Dedicated to the men of Merchant Navy
Have you ever stood a foc’sle watch
On a tanker, just at dawn
And through icy sheet checked out the fleet
Dreading the klaxon horn,
Loathing the feel of freezing steel
And longing for a day that’s warm ?

Hoist the blood red ensign high !
Pay homage to the brave !
Those who live and those that die
In a deep and lonely grave !

Have you ever seen a cargo ship go down ?
Heard the screams of dying men ?
Struck by a foe from deep below
And were helpless to defend
And in your dreams relived the scenes
Until you woke again ?

Hoist the blood red ensign high !
Salute those valiant men !
Those who were, and those who are
And those to be again !

Have you ever seen a ship at sea
That could barely make its way ?
But bore the might of a frenzied fight
And still made port, one day ?
With decks still red from those that bled
Who died for our today !

Hoist the blood red ensign high !
And let us not forget
Those loyal crews who paid there dues,
In courage, blood and sweat !

Have you ever sat in an open boat
On seas that were choked with oil ?
With lungs aflame and racked with pain,
And felt your anger boil
And wondered why men had to die,
And was it worth the toil ?

Hoist the blood red ensign high
Sound the bugle call !
And honour them the Merchant men,
The bravest of them all. !

Dennis John Wood. Caerphilly, Ex Army and ex Merchant Navy

On display at: The United Services Club, Wharton Street, Cardiff

MN 2018Merchant-Navy-Day-logo-01-840x282.jpg

[happy daze john in oz]

Here where we live there is a very local community radio station that is run purely by volunteers.

2 years ago a commercial operation took control of the radio station, it was a disaster.
They left after some 18 months leaving what was a good local radio into a total mess.
It is now back in the hands of the local community volunteers but still has along way to go to become again what nit was, the voice of the community.
I managed to get the following out this morning and started with an Australian guise in an effort to maybe bring some of the listeners back.

The current operators were pleased to get this on as I had done a similar talk some years ago about the MN in general, good response from that.


MERCHANT NAVY

In 1915 Australian troops entered in to battle at Gallipoli, a battle lost before it began.
We often talk of it, the coming of nationhood for Australia.

In both world wars we all knew of the Army, Royal Navy and the Air force.
The three armed forces that won the war for the allies and brought peace to the world.

All are well recorded and remembered in Shrines and memorials across this and many other nations.
To them we owe a debt, for without their effort we may well not be where we are today, free and living in a democratic nation as are so many other countries that could well have fallen under the yoke of another nation had the outcome been different.

We often talk of the gallant men, and many women, who made this possible.
The nurses in field hospitals who tended the sick and injured and often comforted the dying in their last moments.

The airmen who never came back from a bombing mission, the sailors who went down with their ships, and the soldiers lost on the battle field.

On Anzac day and Remembrance day we salute their memories.

But there was another service that many do not realize existed, a service with out which
the outcome of both wars may have been very different.

Often referred to as the forth or forgotten service.

These were the civilians of the Merchant Navy. The navy made up not of war ships but simple honest cargo ships and passenger liners.

During the two world wars over 33,000 unarmed civilians, all proud Merchant seamen, made the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of those ashore.

It was theses brave and gallant men who served on unarmed merchant ships.
The ships ,that without their effort, the wars may well have gone a different way.

The ships that carried the munitions for the armed forces, the ships that carried the food for those ashore, or the oil for ships engines. All the components that assisted those at the front to gain the upper hand.


But theses brave civilians were also at the front, a front that few know of or understand, a front on the open seas.

A front where without notice the enemy could strike at any time, submarines, like stalkers in the night ,sending their deadly torpedoes towards an unarmed merchant ship.
Striking often in the dead of night, hitting the ship below the water line killing most of the engine room crew in one blast.

Men who had no means of escape, who either drowned or were burned to death.
Men who have no grave but the sea.

Sending ships with vital equipment and much needed resources to the bottom.

But this did not kill or remove the resolve of those brave men, men who knowing the risk still ventured on to these ships to ensure that vital resources were delivered.

Men who when their ship went down, if they survived that, would spend days in a life boat waiting to be rescued, or as the case of my grandfather, a ships engineer in WW 1, on a life raft for four days before being picked up.

Some is dire circumstances where the enemy surfaced as with machine gun murdered the few survivors, no quarter given here or prisoners taken.

Brave men, civilians who had decided long before any war to make a life at sea, a life that was to ensure the nation was fed, supplied with all manner of goods needed for daily life.

It was these men who crewed the troop ships at Gallipoli, who crewed the hospital ships, the fleet tankers bringing much needed fuel to the warships.

Unlike those in the services they wore no uniform, dressed in civilian clothes they looked no different to any other man in the street. Enjoyed a pint in the local pub, laughed and joked with mates, then said goodbye to family and friends knowing this could well be the last time they met. Yet still they went forth into the unknown.

Men such as those of the crew of the Cunard liner Lusitania, which on 7 May 1915 was torpedeod by a German submarine resulting in the loss of passengers and crew, of the 1962 on board only 761 survived.
Such was the daily risk taken by these men.



But they stood tall and wore their position with pride, a pride that told the world just who they were and what they did. Men who so proudly sailed under the Red Ensign, the flag of the merchant Navy still in use today on many ships.


But sadly it was not until recent times, only 2008 here in Australia, when they received official recognition.

Monday September 3 is Merchant Navy day across all Commonwealth nations.
We of the forth service ask, that on this day you spend a few moments to reflect of the efforts and sacrifices made by these brave men.

Brave men who made the ultimate sacrifice so you can enjoy today, the freedom of a democratic nation.

Thank you.

[Doc Vernon]

An excellent Speech John
Wish I had heard it,wonder if it could be heard again on Playback at all??
But thank you for doing it,all part and parcel of Keeping the Memory Alive!
All the best Cobber! LOL
Cheers