Remembering the Raceland: Righting a Wrong

During the Second World War one of the most perilous duties of any Allied ship was to round the North Cape under threat of attack from the Luftwaffe, U-boats and the Arctic weather. In March 1942 one of the hundreds of merchant ships which braved those waters in the PQ Arctic convoys sailing that route became one of the victims.

The Clydebuilt SS Raceland had been the Italian owned ship Ircana berthed in Florida. In 1941 she was requisitioned, passed into US ownership, and as was common for the day was registered under her new name in Panama. The ports of the USA were filled with sailors from all over the world in 1942 and her crew was as multi-national as her background.  The bulk of her crew were Scandinavian – Norwegians, Danes and Swedes but there were also Estonians, Dutch, Canadian, English and Scots sailing her.

On 28^th March 1942 the Raceland was attacked by Junkers 88 Luftwaffe bombers as she rounded the tip of Norway on her way to Murmansk as part of convoy PQ13. After taking several hits the Raceland’s engines gave up and the ship began to sink. She was already a slow ship and the convoy couldn’t wait for her as she settled in the water. It was a still day in the Arctic waters and with their ship sinking beneath them the forty-five crew took to four lifeboats in the hope of reaching the fairly close Norwegian coast. Their luck took a turn for the worse that night as the weather changed and a storm scattered the lifeboats and capsized two, killing all occupants.

For the next few days the two remaining lifeboats endured the hardships of small boats in Arctic waters. Exposure took its toll in both boats and many men died before they separately reached the inhospitable shores of northern Norway; one boat after five days and the other after eleven. The bodies of those who died after reaching land first were recovered, but were buried at a remote location on the island of Söröy. All the Scots sailing on the Raceland had died on the lifeboats and had no grave but the sea.

A few men did survive, and it is from the survivors - passing the details via the Red Cross, from a German prisoner-of-war camp, to the next of kin of their dead shipmates - that we know this story of the Raceland’s fate.

Unfortunately  - and shamefully -the Scots of the Raceland who laid down their lives for freedom were not commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission after the war. Out of ten Commonwealth crew members of the ship only one was commemorated by the CWGC. I think it is no coincidence that Ship's Boy Roy Currie - who was one of those whose bodies were recovered on land - is the only one commemorated. Either the German or Norwegian authorities will have recorded his death and burial, and ensured his recording in the official registers. The rest have been lost in a gap of recording British and Canadian nationals serving in non-British registered ships. The recording of British sailors lost in British ships during both World Wars was already patchy; adding an extra level of administration had obviously been too much. In April 1942 the US Coastguard informed the British Consulate in Washington of the British nationals who were missing after the loss of the Raceland. We don’t know if this was the only occasion when the details of the names were passed on to UK authorities from the US authorities but there are other paper trails between next of kin and US authorities and ship owners to suspect it wasn’t.

A nephew of one of the Dutchmen who died when the Raceland foundered has been researching the fate of the ship and the men for a book he is going to publish. Jos Odjink in the Netherlands has already pieced together the facts around the sinking of the ship and has researched the background to many of the crew. It is thanks to Jos’s hard work that we know so much about the Raceland and we are very grateful that he has put a lot of the details online.

http://www.ss-raceland.com/indexEnglish.html  

Consulting archives in London and Washington whilst on business trips, Jos has uncovered several useful documents. From Jos’s information and the work of some members of the Scottish War Memorials Project this is what we know of the Scottish sailors of the Raceland so far:

John G Keogh

He was born at Carntyne Street, Shettleston on 28th March 1902. The ship was sunk on his 40th birthday.

His parents were John and Ellen Keough (nee McKeown) and in the 1911 Census he was one of five children. His next-of-kin address during the war was given as 703 Shettleston Road, Glasgow - his mother was living there. She died in the same location in July 1949. One of the survivors wrote to her from a PoW camp and said her son had died the day after the sinking. A Merchant Navy index card from 1937 for John Keough survives and gives his rating as Fireman.

James Joseph Burns

No date of birth has been found yet, but his age is given as 38 by the US Coastguard so it should be around 1904. No James Joseph Burns has been found to match this date of birth.

His next-of-kin address was given as 117 Florence Street, Glasgow - it was his mother who was living there. The same survivor in the PoW camp who gave information to John Keogh’s mother told James Burns’ mother that her son had died in a lifeboat on the 2nd of April.

Hugh McKenzie

This man is more difficult to track down and not just because of the name. He was listed by the US Coastguard as 48 years old, so he should have a date of birth around the mid 1890's. His next of kin address is given as 1913, 75th St Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio. Jos thinks he may have taken US citizenship even though the US Coastguard sent his details to the British Embassy.

We have managed to find a Merchant Navy index card for a Hugh Brown Mckenzie with a birth of 2nd November 1896 in Glasgow which is a possible lead but will need to be confirmed. Interestingly it also features a photo of the man concerned.  

Could this be Hugh McKenzie?

Jack Kleinberg

This man is actually listed on the SNWM roll of honour at Edinburgh Castle. This is because his sister approached the Secretary to the SNWM Trustees in the 1990’s with the information she had about her brother’s death. The SNWM entry says he was born in Glasgow:

Able Seaman Jack Kleinberg

Place of birth: Glasgow

Date of death: 28 March 1942

Theatre of death: Unknown

SNWM roll: MERCHANT NAVY & FISHING FLEETS (Part 1)

Unit attached to MERCHANT NAVY & FISHING FLEETS

Other detail S.S. "RACELAND"

Jos Odjink has found a letter from Kleinberg’s fiancée -an Etta Bernstein of Glasgow -looking for information from the ship owners about his fate.

Along with his place of birth, that would seem to suggest he was a Glaswegian but intriguingly he is also listed on the Jewish War Memorial in Piershill Cemetery in Edinburgh. This memorial also gives his age as 23. It was the investigation of this man’s name on which prompted the SMRG investigation of the fate of the other Scottish crewmen of the Raceland –

http://warmemscot.s4.bizhat.com/viewtopic.php?t=8363&mforum=warmemscot

Jewish War Memorial in Piershill Cemetery

Earlier this year Jack Kleinberg’s name came to the attention of Martin Sugarman. Martin has set himself the task of identifying Jewish servicemen and women who had died during the World Wars but had not been commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. We passed on all we had on Jack Kleinberg to Martin as did Jos Odjink. Martin lives in London and is able to make regular visits to The National Archives and was able to track down the vital pieces of information which could be used as evidence in progressing Jack Kleinberg’s case with the CWGC.  The good news is Jack Kleinberg has been accepted by the CWGC for commemoration and he will be added to their database. At some point in the future his name will also be added to the Tower Hill Memorial to the Merchant Navy in London.

The other Commonwealth war dead lost on the Raceland deserve to be commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, and the three Scots by the Scottish National War Memorial. With Martin’s successful submission to the CWGC that commemoration looks a step closer and the SMRG will look for the evidence and provide them to the relevant authorities. 

It’s not just the men of the Raceland. Other Scots serving on US merchant ships are not commemorated either. There will be some amount of work to identify the unrecorded Scots and get them commemorated, but the men who manned our lifeline, the unsung heroes of the Second World War, deserve nothing less.  Men like:

Thomas Mullin. Lost on the Nathaniel Green 02/24/43 F/W from Rothesay, Bute, Scotland

C. W Hunter. Lost on the Nimba 09/13/42 Scotland

Joseph Sutherland. Lost on the Rochester 01/30/42 3rd Engineer, from Glasgow, Scotland

Edward M Mackin. Lost on the Tambour 09/26/42 Donkeyman, from Scotland, Aged 32

John McRae. Lost on the Winkler 02/23/43 Able Seaman, from Scotland

Hugh J. Smith. Lost on the Winkler 02/23/43 Ordinary Seaman, from Scotland

Private war memorials in churches

Just south of Dunnotar Castle in the old county of Kincardine is the small village of Catterline. There is no civic war memorial in the village but there are memorials in the Church of Scotland and Episcopal Church to the men of the village who lost their lives in the World Wars. The cross in the churchyard of St James’ Episcopal Church lists eight First World War names and one for the Second World War. Like many church memorials is lists only names and gives no other details such as rank, unit or date of death to help anyone researching the names. There are also two men with the same name - William Stephen - which is always a challenge when there are no other details. 

Church War Memorial, St James' Catterline

Luckily, inside the church is a private memorial to one of the William Stephens with more information to help identify who he was. 

Private Memorial in St James', Catterline

Unlike civic memorials or other public memorials, privately purchased memorials often have a lot of information on them. They can be simple memorials such as an inscription on a headstone of they could be a brass or marble plaque on a church wall; or sometimes they are stained glass windows or other church fittings. Private memorials often give details of the cause and place of death and family information. Sometimes they will give the citations for gallantry awards or their war service before their deaths. A private memorial such as the one to William Stephen should be a very useful source of information for researchers then.  

The one in Catterline Church certainly has plenty of information. It records William Stephen’s rank, ship, next of kin, date of death and age. It was erected by the officers and engineers of the Australian Transport ship A.49 – a ship used to ferry Australian service personnel and cargo. Engineer Stephen had been in the crew of the SS “Seang Choon” before it had been requisitioned in 1915 as the HMAT 49 and had remained on the ship – still in the Mercantile Marine – when it was under Australian orders.

Engineer Stephen died in early 1917 but a search on the fate of the ship shows it was not lost in early January but in mid-1917. The HMAT 49 was torpedoed by U-87 off Ireland in June 1917. There is also no record of the ship being in any action which would have caused the death of Engineer Stephen.

Stephen’s private memorial records that he died on “Active Service” on  2nd January 1917 but a search on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database does not show an entry for him, neither does the Scottish National War Memorial database. The CWGC and SNWM have strict criteria for inclusion for men of the Mercantile Marine on their databases. Engineer Stephen may have faced many of the same risks as his Royal Navy colleagues on the high seas but if he did not die as a result of enemy action then he would not qualify for inclusion on the CWGC or SNWM databases. The inscription “Active Service” is a red herring. This is unfortunately quite common on private headstones where ranks, units and dates can all be inscribed incorrectly and send researchers down blind alleys.

As it turns out 2nd Engineer William Stephen did not die on active service. At the time of his death he was not even at sea, he was in Greenwich Hospital and died of Meningitis & Hypostatic Pneumonia. If he had been in the Royal Navy rather than a civilian organisation he would have qualified for commemoration. He is one of many Scottish mariners who did their bit in the war but are not remembered in official records as a war death. However he is still remembered in his home village, and by the Scottish Military Research Group Commemorations Project (SMRGCP)

Celebrating Scotland's disproportionate WW1 deaths

The Commonwealth Games is now upon us, and whilst that means one countdown is now finished for Glasgow another one is entering its final days. On 4^th August 2014 the Commonwealth Heads will gather in Glasgow Cathedral for a service of commemoration to mark the centenary of the start of the Great War. There will also be another ceremony later in the day in George Square at the City’s Cenotaph.

A week later on 10^th August, the Scottish Government’s own commemoration will take place in Edinburgh - at the Castle Esplanade and then Holyrood Park.

Around both dates I’m sure we can expect social media, online comments and letter pages to be filled with an indignant section of the Scottish population complaining about us celebrating the start of war in which the number of Scots killed was disproportionally higher than the other parts of Britain (26.4% compared to 11.8%).

I guarantee you will see these words and you will see these figures trotted out repeatedly over the next few weeks. With that in mind it’s worth having a look in some detail about the facts behind them.

Celebrating the Start of the War

Some people, and to be fair this isn’t just a Scottish trait, seem to find it highly offensive that the start of the First World War should be commemorated. They consider no centenary event before 11^th November 2018 is worthy of commemoration. None of the battles where Scots fought so bravely to defeat the Germans should be marked – The Germans remember were the ones who had invaded and occupied parts of Belgium, France, Poland, the Baltic states, Russia and Ukraine. To some it is only the end of the “futile war” which should be remembered and nothing else. That is nonsense. If we are to learn anything from this  - and Scotland WW100, the Scottish Government’s First World War centenary programme, uses as its tagline “What do we learn from all th1s” (the 1 is their choice, not my typo)  - then we must commemorate the war’s events from August 2014 onwards.

For a list of the events being officially commemorated by the Scottish Government between 2014 and 2019, under the direction of Culture Minister Fiona Hyslop’s Scottish Commemoration Panel, there is a Scottish Government webpage.

Notice I have repeatedly used the words “commemorated” or “commemoration” and not used the words “celebrated” or “celebration”. The use of “celebrate” has been seized on by many with an agenda after a comment by David Cameron, at a speech in the Imperial War Museum in October 2012 after a very successful summer of celebrations across the UK for the Olympics and the Jubilee.

“Our ambition is a truly national commemoration, worth of this historic centenary.  I want a commemoration that captures our national spirit, in every corner of the country, from our schools to our workplaces, to our town halls and local communities.  A commemoration that, like the Diamond Jubilee celebrated this year, says something about who we are as a people.”

It was ill-judged analogy, and Jeremy Paxman amongst others has criticised its use. Since that time, anyone involved in organising official events for the First World War centenary have been preparing for commemorations and certainly not Diamond Jubilee-like celebrations.  

The number of Scots killed in WW1 was disproportionally higher than the other nationalities in Britain

Thanks to two prominent Scottish academic history professors – Niall Ferguson and Sir Tom Devine – we have incorrect figures being quoted as fact by many Scottish commentators and our media. Because the good professors have quoted these figures it must be true. Even Trevor Royle, the Scottish Commemorations Panel’s historical advisor, has recently quoted the incorrect total for our war dead, even though he has been on record as quoting more accurate figures in the past, and admits on page 529 of his First World War chapter in A Military History of Scotland, published in 2012, that “it is impossible to get absolute agreement on the exact number of Scottish war deaths”.

Niall Ferguson first quoted the figure of 26.4% as a total number of Scots killed as a percentage of those who mobilised, on page 299 of his book The Pity of War in 1998 . On the previous page of his book he also said the following:

"The Scots were (after the Serbs and Turks) the soldiers who suffered the highest death rate of the war"

Ferguson cites American historian Professor Jay Winter’s 1986 book The Great War and the British People as his source of data. He compares Scotland’s 26.4% with the figure of 11.8% for the same numbers of dead for Britain and Ireland as a whole.  Winter’s book shows a table on page 75 – Table 3.4, Some Estimates of Military Losses Among Combatant Countries in the 1914-1918 War. The table includes the 11.8% figure for Britain and Ireland, and Serbia and Turkey, but there is no mention of Scotland.

Winter’s figures in his book are based on the statistics in the publications Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire During the Great War 1914-1920; General Annual Report of the British Army 1913-1919; History of the War, Naval Operations and History of the Great War. War in the Air. In none of these publications is the figure of Scotland’s war dead quoted. Ferguson seems to have come up with that figure himself but does not explain his calculations. Some fact!

Sir Tom Devine’s figures are in his book The Scottish Nation 1700-2000. (published 2000) on page 309.

"Of the 557,000 Scots who enlisted in all services, 26.4 per cent lost their lives. This compares with an average death rate of 11.8 per cent for the rest of the British army between 1914 and 1918. Of all the combatant nations, only the Serbs and the Turks had higher per capita mortality rates”

This looks quite familiar. 26.4% versus 11.8% and references to Serbia and Turkey.

Unfortunately, Devine does not cite his sources for these statistics and compares the number of Scots in all services - army, navy and air-force - against a figure for British Army deaths.

With neither professor providing the detail behind their calculations we will have to make some assumptions on where they got their figures from.

Devine gives us a figure of 557,000 of Scots who enlisted in all services in WW1 as a basis for his statement.  On page 740 of Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire During the Great War 1914-1920, published by HMSO in 1920, we get a figure of 557,618 as the men and women recruited (or “mobilised” as Ferguson would say) in Scotland during the war. This is presumably where Devine gets his 557,000 figure. If anyone knows differently, please let me know.  

So where does Professor Devine get 26.4% from? If you compare the figure of 147,000 - which was the total number of WW1 dead recorded in the rolls in the Scottish National War Memorial (SNWM) in the 1990s - against 557,000, you get 26.39%, or rounded up, 26.4%.

This SNWM total will also give you Ferguson’s figure:

Total number of Scots killed (147,000) as a percentage of those who mobilised (557,618) equals 26.36%, rounded up to 26.4%

Two eminent historians, two ostensibly collaborating statistics and both complete tosh. We can discount the statistics from both men because:

1. Both professors have derived their figures from the same data. Devine’s statistics do not prove Ferguson’s are true and vice-versa.
2. The Scottish National War Memorial figure of 147,000 includes many non-Scots serving in Scottish regiments and the double and triple counting of entries. We’ve covered this subject in a bit more detail before in another Blog post.  The gist of it is this; the number of Scottish war dead is likely to be nearer 100,000 - 110,000 than 150,000. One hundred thousand Scottish war dead is the figure Trevor Royle used in his Flowers of the Forest (published 2006) and was also used by Doctor Catriona M.M. McDonald and Professor Elaine W. McFarland in their publication Scotland And The Great War (published 1998).
3. 557,618 is the total number of Scotsmen and women recruited by the British Army – from 1914 to 1918. On page 740 of Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire During the Great War 1914-1920 it clearly states at the top of the list (e) that the figures represent “The provision of men for the armed Forces of the Crown (as far as the Army is concerned)”. It does not include tens of thousands of pre-war Scottish recruits to the regular army, the reserve and the Territorial Force, which is only given as a UK-wide total at the top of the table. It also does not include the Scots who served in the Royal Navy and later the Royal Air Force. It is also missing the Scotsmen in the armed services of the Dominions – Australia, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and India. Trevor Royle in A Military History of Scotland (2012) says that 690,235 Scots had been mobilised in the First World War but does not give any detail on where he got this figure. I think it’s safe to assume this figure is for Scots in UK forces only and does not include the Scottish diaspora's service. 

So if Devine and Ferguson are wrong and 26.4% of Scots mobilised didn’t die during the First World War, what is the correct number?

Using Royle’s figures of c.100,000 dead and 690,235 served, gives a percentage of 14.4%. Still higher than 11.8%, but nowhere close to 26.4%. 14.4% also compares a total of the dead which includes the Scots diaspora serving in Dominion and Imperial units against a mobilised total for UK units.

If the mobilised figure includes the Scots who served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, Australian Imperial Force and other overseas forces, the total number of Scots who served in the Great War might be as high as 800k. This would give us a Scottish dead compared to mobilised percentage of 12.5% - less than half Ferguson and Devine’s statistic and much closer to the UK total of 11.8%. It’s worth remembering at this point that the 11.8% doesn’t include English, Welsh and Irish diaspora numbers, so by factoring that in would there actually be any difference between Scottish and UK war dead percentages? Personally, I doubt it.

As a founder member of the Scottish War Memorial Project I have seen thousands of war memorials over the last few years and take a close interest in memorials wherever I go. If I’m in Caithness the First World War memorials certainly don’t have twice as many names as ones I see on memorials in similar sized towns and villages in Cumberland, Carmarthenshire, or County Down.

Devine and Ferguson’s calculations don’t stand up to scrutiny, and they certainly don’t add up when you are standing in front of any tragically long list of names carved in stone.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics

It was interesting to see two articles in Scottish newspapers today about the commemoration of the First World War. One was by Joan McAlpine MSP in the Daily Record and the other was by Alex Massie in The Scotsman

Both writers came to different conclusions but in both cases they used incorrect and widely quoted statistics about Scotland and the Great War.

The first is the number of Scottish WW1 war dead. This is often quoted as 150,000. This figure is taken from the total number of war dead recorded in the rolls of honour in the Scottish National War Memorial. Researchers are still finding names to add so the current total is just over 147,00 names.

This figure is based on all the names in all the rolls. That means the men of the Lovat Scouts who died in Salonika after December 1916 are recorded in two rolls - The Lovat Scouts and the Queens Own Cameron Highlanders - because between then and the end of the war they were the 10th Bn Cameron Highlanders. There were several other yeomanry regiments in the same situation; Black Watch battalions of Scottish Horse and Ayrshire Yeomanry in the Royal Scots Fusiliers. All these men died once but are recorded twice.

Many men served in more than one regiment during the war for a variety of reasons. A man may have enlisted in the Highland Light Infantry, transferred to the Royal Scots and by the time of his death be serving in The Northumberland Fusiliers. One soldier, one death but three entries in the rolls of honour in Edinburgh Castle.

There is a roll specifically for Scottish soldiers serving in English regiments but there is no roll for Englishmen serving in Scottish regiments. Each bay in the Scottish National War Memorial for a Scottish infantry regiment records the men who served in them irrespective of nationality. The men from Manchester who served in the Royal Scots, the Dubliners in the Black Watch, the Leicester men in the Seaforth Highlanders are all counted as Scots in the SNWM. If they happened to serve in two regiments they are double-counted too.

So if there weren't 150,000 Scottish war dead in the First World War how many did actually die? There is no accurate figure but it's probably around 100,000 - 110,000. However until all the post-war dead who died of wounds into the 1920's are found and counted an accurate figure is still impossible to determine.

We now come onto the second statistic. The five thousand war memorials which the Scottish Government have set up a £1m fund to help restore is based on a figure taken from Wikipedia.

A civil servant tasked with a press release must have gone onto Google, typed in "Scottish War Memorials" and got this Wikipedia page. At the time the figure of total Scottish war memorials was given as between 5,000 and 6,000. This had been based on one-tenth of the estimated UK total of war memorials provided by the Imperial War Museum's United Kingdom National Inventory of War Memorials (UKNIWM). I know this because I wrote the Wikipedia page when that number was 55,000.

In the last couple of years the UKNIWM has revised its figure to 100,000 and the Scottish War Memorials Project has estimated that there are 8,000 to 10,000 war memorials in Scotland based on the comprehensive recording work done in Dumfries & Galloway. This figure includes all Scottish war memorials, not just the ones erected after the First World War.

In the SWMP we categorise our memorials as civic, church, unit, school, individuals and others. There are just over 1,400 civic war memorials in Scotland, the memorials paid for and erected by locals and used as the focus of remembrance by communities each November. Of that figure 1,200 are on high streets and in prominent locations in our towns and villages across Scotland. These 1,200 Celtic crosses, obelisks, cairns and statues are the ones the First Minister had in mind when he launched the War Memorial Restoration Fund but they are only a fraction of the memorials in our country.

There will be many more newspaper articles about Scotland in the First World War in the months to come, lets hope that as the centenary approaches we see a little less reliance on Wikipedia and a lot more accuracy.