Fly famous old flag with pride

Sir, – I should like to add my concern about opposition to flying the Merchant Navy flag on September 3.

Ian Malcolm (Letters, August 24) laid out the high loss of life and injury suffered by merchant navy seamen (male and female) in the Second World War as they kept our sea lanes open.

I should like to add something from my personal experience.

As a schoolboy in his mid-teens, in 1946 I spent part of my summer holidays on board the SS Arch Royal, run by the Tay Sand Co Ltd, Dundee.

She was a coaster with a carrying capacity of some 400 tons and was on passage with cargo from Wick to London.

Passing down the Yarmouth Roads at low tide, quite a few wrecks of mined, bombed or torpedoed ships stuck out from the sandbanks where they had been beached to keep the navigation channels open.

However as we neared the approaches to the Thames, the full horror of the war at sea in that area became apparent.

It was dusk and the twinkling lights from buoys in the river approaches made it, after years of blackout, look like a fairyland until one realised that most (a later report suggested some 200) were wreck buoys marking the last resting place of ships and, certainly, of some of their crews.

The war’s effect on seamen was also clearly illustrated to me as we later sailed out of the Thames.

Suddenly there was an enormous noise and the ship juddered as if it had been struck on the starboard side by a massive rubber hammer.

I was writing a letter home while the captain slept; one second he was fast asleep in his bunk, the next he was vertical, standing ready beside it – second nature from his wartime experiences.

It transpired that wartime wrecks were being dispersed with underwater explosives.

In subsequent school and university holiday voyages working on similar coasters, I learned much more of the hardships, challenges and trauma that other merchant seamen had suffered during the difficult days of the war.

Had it not been for the courage and dogged determination of these brave “ordinary” seamen and their officers, we might not now have the freedom to fly the “Red Duster” or any other national flag, so please let us fly it with pride on September 3 to honour the Merchant Navy, its sacrifices and continuing service to the nation. Douglas G. Neilson. 4 Argyle Street, Dundee.