ARCTIC STAR
Exceptional decoration for wartime duty
Of all the things the escaped prisoner of war told Windsor, Ont., police, the story about surviving the sinking of an iconic German battleship likely seemed the biggest stretch.
Speaking in flawless English, 23- year- old Johann Merkle told the cops he grew up in Windsor, moved back to Germany with his family when the Second World War started, joined the German Navy and served on the SMS Scharnhorst.
Only 36 of 1,968 men survived the Dec. 26, 1943, sinking of the Scharnhorst, the ‘ Lucky Scharnhorst’ as proud Germans called the speedy and deadly battleship involved in sinking 22 merchant marine ships and several navy ships.
Merkle told police in early March 1946 that he was one of the 36 survivors, and had escaped a PoW camp in Northern Ontario a week earlier. He turned himself in shortly after asking for lodging from a Windsor resident, who recognized him and called on him to surrender.
When David McClenaghan read the story in The London Free Press on March 12, 1946, he knew he had to check the list.
McClenaghan had served as chief petty officer on HMS Sheffield, a Royal Navy light cruiser that fired on the Scharnhorst before battleships finished her.
The Royal Navy had each Scharnhorst survivor sign a piece of paper and provided each of its own sailors with a copy of that list.
McClenaghan dug out his list and sure enough, the signature of “Johnny Merkle” sat on top. He contacted a Free Press reporter to substantiate the PoW’s story.
“What a curious crossing of paths,” his son, Thom McClenaghan, says 69 years later. “I remember hearing him saying that one of the things about sailors in the water, when they’re all covered with oil, they all look the same irrespective of what side they’re on.”
The sinking of the Scharnhorst was only one of the many actions McClenaghan saw during a career that has led to his family receiving the relatively new Arctic Star in London next week.
Reaching out to help a young German PoW on the other side of a fierce battle only three years earlier was only one of the many anomalies of McClenaghan’s life.
Born in 1900 into a blue- collar family in Dumbarton near Glasgow, Scotland, McClenaghan grew to hate the British class system.
“There were people on the streets of Dumbarton who would step down into the street when certain people were walking on the sidewalk,” Thom McClenaghan says.
The family emigrated to Canada in 1920, his father determined never to step off a sidewalk for someone of a higher class.
But he chose to join the Royal Navy, the shining brass symbol of the class system, knowing he’d never get into an officers mess or climb higher than the engine room.
At 43, with a wife and two children, he could have stayed safe in London for the war. To this day, McClenaghan doesn’t know what prompted his father to sign up.
Maybe it’s because he had a wife and two children, it’s suggested.
“I always wondered about that,” McClenaghan says, laughing. “I hope I didn’t cause him to sign up.” McClenaghan can remember “as if it was yesterday” being six and seeing his father get aboard the troop trains in London in early 1943.
His ship, the Sheffield, was one in the Allies’ northern convoys taking supplies to the Soviet Union. Treacherous conditions and a determined enemy claimed more than 3,000 men, 85 merchant ships and 16 Royal Navy vessels during the war.
When the war ended, the elder McClenaghan returned home and settled even deeper into domestic life. He and his wife had more children, and he got his job back in the CN Rail foundry, a position he held until he retired in 1965 at age 65.
His father often met immigrants at work, and provided free room and board until they got their bearings. Many were Scots, of course, but McClenaghan can remember at least two German immigrants who stayed with the family.
He’s not sure what happened to those immigrants, or the young sailor, Merkle.
Police told The Windsor Star at the time that Merkle was “disposed of,” presumably sent back to the PoW camp. An Internet search shows a man with the same name and birth date died in Utica, N. Y., in 2000. David McClenaghan died in 1979. Three years ago, after years of lobbying by former sailors, the Queen formally approved the awarding of the Arctic Star for those who served on northern convoys. It took about another year and public pressure from veterans before the Canadian government granted its approval of the medal.
McClenaghan read about the medal in a newspaper a few years ago and applied first to the British, then the Canadian, government. Nothing happened for a long time. McClenaghan asked his MP at the time, Ed Holder, to help move things along.
A few weeks ago, the star showed up in the mail — an understated end to the story that makes McClenaghan laugh. A more fitting ceremony has been planned for Aug. 26 at London’s naval reserve, HMCS Prevost.
McClenaghan’s eldest son, David, named after his grandfather, will accept the star on behalf of the family.
I remember hearing him saying that one of the things about sailors in the water, when they’re all covered with oil, they all look the same ...