Shipping Attack March 1941

[Martin Gleeson]

Hallo Mark,

I tried posting this message last night but the connection failed when I tried to submit it. However it seems others are presently having similar problems.

I presume you found that information on the Adolphe Urban in File G2/X/0466 ('Shipwrecks off the Irish Coast, Bodies washed ashore'). That file was hard work ! Unfortunately I never found anything else on this very sad incident. Your post has prompted me to do some work on it.

Firstly the lifeboat was actually found in the Shannon Estuary on 26 March 1941 and the bodies were buried on the 27th in Kilrush, Co. Clare.

I found an old 2002 posting by Theodor Dorgeist on the Warsailors.com website about this ship. He states it was bombed and sunk by German aircraft on 8 March 1941 in position 52.20 N, 05.37 W. This is approximately midway in St. George's Channel between Ireland and Wales. Or about 30 miles ENE of Rosslare in Co. Wexford. I don't know about tides and currents, but it seems unusual that a lifeboat could travel such a circuitous route. Also in these very busy waters one might expect it to have been seen by the many ships and aircraft patrolling overhead.

It was sailing from Swansea in Wales to Drogheda in Ireland. Captain Marcel Vyncke and 11 crew were lost, there were no survivors. Seven of the crew of British nationality are named on the Tower Hill Memorial website to lost British and Commonwealth merchant seamen. Some more information can be found on the www.wrecksite.eu (as per Leon) and the www.miramarshipindex.org.nz websites.

A check of the www.u-boat.net revealed a U-boat was not involved in this sinking. Indeed they were not operating in the Irish Sea/St. George's Channel area at that stage of the war. Nor is this vessel named on a list of ships attacked by FW 200s of KG 40. However KG 27 with its Heinkel 111s were heavily committed to anti-shipping operations in this area during the spring of 1941.

If anyone has the KG 27 unit history by Walter Waiss could they please check this possibility for us ?

Hope this helps - and this reply posts properly !

Martin Gleeson.