Danish sailors’ wartime home

Danish sailors in their Newcastle club reading room

DURING World War Two, the entire Danish merchant navy fleet was ordered by their government not to return to Denmark after German armed forces occupied the country on April 9, 1940.

Some 6,000 Danish sailors of all ages and ranks spent the next five years sailing the world’s oceans in service of the Allies, and half of them would end up in the UK.

In the summer of 1940, the Danish consul in Newcastle offered the city as the “official home town” for the Danish War Sailors, as they came to be called.

The following year, the British Government opened a Danish club for them in St Nicholas’ Building opposite Newcastle Cathedral. The event was covered by the Evening Chronicle at the time. Today there is a memorial plaque on the side of the building. Spokesman HC Andersen

said: “The sailors would mostly have been at sea, but at any one time 100 or more would have been in the city between sailings and they were a common and welcome sight on Newcastle streets. Not all of them survived the war. Around 2,000 gave their lives, out of a total of 6,000. Newcastle is so significant in their story that the decision was made to place an international memorial to them at Newcastle Cathedral.”

Danish Liberation Day falls on May 5, the day when General

Montgomery announced the surrender of German troops in Denmark, Holland, the Friesian Islands and elsewhere. The Danish Church in Newcastle holds a memorial service every year as close as possible to that date at Newcastle Cathedral. This year the service takes place on Sunday, May 1 at midday. It is open to all.