Honour them
Plan for Battle of Atlantic memorial 73yrs on
THE heroes of one of the most crucial campaigns of the Second World War could finally be recognised with a memorial for their sacrifices.
A sculpture is being planned in honour of the 50,000 Allied servicemen and merchant sailors who lost their lives in the Battle of the Atlantic.
The struggle to protect the convoys bringing vital supplies from the US to Europe was the longest campaign of the conflict, and Winston Churchill said it was ‘the dominating factor’ on which the war’s outcome depended.
Tomorrow an appeal will be launched to raise £2.5million to fund a 15-ton bronze sculpture on the waterfront in Liverpool, where Allied commanders in the battle were based.
The campaign’s chairman Vice Admiral Mike Gretton – whose father Vice Admiral Sir Peter Gretton served during the battle – said the memorial would be a chance to correct an oversight, 73 years after the last skirmishes.
He added: ‘Despite the immense significance of the Battle of the Atlantic, it does not have a dedicated national memorial in Britain.
‘We believe that, as the veterans leave us, it is vital that we create a fitting memorial to the lion-hearted men and women who served.’
Records show a total of 3,500 merchant ships and 175 British warships were lost during the Battle of the Atlantic, which also resulted in the loss of more than 72,000 sailors.
Among the British losses was HMS Hood, built at John Brown’s shipyard in Clydebank, Dunbartonshire. The vessel was sunk by the battleship Bismarck in the Denmark Strait between Iceland and Greenland in 1941. The statue is being designed by Paul Day, who created the Battle of Britain Monument on the Thames Embankment. His sculpture will remember those on both sides of the conflict, including U-boat submariners who perished.
Alec Owen, 93, who served in the Navy’s convoy escorts, told The Mail on Sunday that the memorial was crucial. Recalling one sinking, he said: ‘I can still see those people we left in the water. It’s difficult to explain the atrocities and what we went through.
‘A memorial must be created to help us communicate what happened, so that our stories are not forgotten.’
For more details of the project, visit battleoftheatlantic.org.