CELEBRATING YOUR PROJECTS
Alan Crosby finds out about a project to commemorate the men lost in the First World War sinking of HMS Laurentic
The sinking of the HMS Laurentic
The SS Laurentic, built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast and launched in 1908, was a transatlantic liner, owned by the White Star Line and used mainly on Liverpool–Canada runs. In September 1914 she was requisitioned by the Canadian Expeditionary Force as a troopship, renamed HMS Laurentic, and later that year converted into an auxiliary cruiser, seeing service off West Africa and in the Far East. She returned to the North Atlantic and on 23 January 1917 left Liverpool for Halifax, Nova Scotia, carrying 479 men and a secret cargo of 43 tons of gold destined for buying arms in North America.
Two days later the Laurentic made an unscheduled stop at Buncrana, Co. Donegal, to disembark four sick passengers, then set off once more, heading down Lough Swilly to the open sea. But on this bitterly cold, black night, she struck two German mines near the entrance to the lough, and sank within an hour. Only 121 of those on board reached lifeboats; 349 men perished in the icy waters.
For the past 10 years the loss of the Laurentic has been remembered in the Republic of Ireland by the Ulster Canada Initiative in ceremonies in Buncrana and the district of Fahan. There are also plans to erect a memorial at Fort Dunree, Donegal, overlooking the disaster site. The impact of the tragedy was felt by families across the world – in coastal communities in Scotland and the Isles, Ireland and Wales, the industrial heartlands of England, the coasts of Cornwall and Devon, and Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the United States of America. Some of the men had entered naval service many years before the outbreak of war, others were part of the Laurentic crew when she was a luxury liner, and many had been called up from the Royal Naval Reserve.
The Laurentic Legacy website, launched by the Ulster Canada Initiative, is home to all of the material gathered about the men who died. Researchers have made contact with families whose lives were touched by the tragedy, and drawn together information from a wide variety of sources – newspaper archives, service records, census returns, personal family archives and oral history – to build portraits of the civilian lives of the victims, and show how the event affected their families.
The website looks at naval reservists, armed forces personnel, merchant seamen and former crewmen of the White Star Line – 69 are buried in St Mura’s Cemetery, Fahan; two are in Cockhill Cemetery; and a few were buried at home. But, sadly, many have no grave, because they were never found – they are commemorated on war memorials at the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial in France, the Somme, Chatham, Plymouth, Portsmouth and elsewhere, but no single memorial yet brings together all those who lost their lives.
Martha McCulloch, one of the researchers, told me that she found the story of the Laurentic “particularly tragic”.
“So many men were lost here, in a location which is not usually a part of the story of the First World War,” she said, “and their stories have been largely overtaken by the story of the cargo of gold bullion lost at the bottom of the lough. Much has been written about the salvage operation, but the men are little more than a footnote. All of those involved in this project felt it was important to redress the balance, to remember each individual life lost.”
She added: “Researching this project has made me vividly aware of the desperate loss to so many families caused by the First World War. So many of these men had young families. Often descendants say they know very little because family members found it too painful to remember, and in other cases we have found families unaware of their ancestor’s fate.”
This is an ongoing project, and the organisers will be hugely grateful for any help from readers of this magazine who have researched members of their family who were affected by the tragedy.
All of those involved in this project felt it was important to remember each life lost