Battle of the Atlantic Memorial Planned in Liverpool

The Battle of the Atlantic Memorial (BOAM), the charity leading the campaign, will stage a press call with war veterans on the Liverpool’s iconic waterfront to launch the fundraising effort to build the 28 meter monument in the shape of a merchant ship split in two. The design is the brainchild of acclaimed sculptor Paul Day whose works include the Battle of Britain Monument and the Iraq-Afghanistan memorial, both in London.

BOAM chairman Vice-Admiral Mike Gretton, whose father Vice-Admiral Sir Peter Gretton served during the battle as an Atlantic Escort Group commander, said the campaign is seeking to raise £2.5million ($3.4 mln) to build the memorial on Liverpool’s Pier Head, which will incorporate the existing statue of U-Boat hunter Johnnie Walker. He said the campaign is aiming to unveil the monument in 2019, the 80th Anniversary of the start of the battle and the beginning of World War Two.

“Today marks a very big moment and is the culmination of years of planning to launch the fundraising campaign,” he said. “Despite the immense significance of the Battle of the Atlantic it does not have a dedicated national memorial in Britain, so the purpose of this campaign is to fill that gap. We believe the memorial is best situated in Liverpool where the campaign headquarters was based, and where so many of the merchant and navy ships were built, based and repaired and - critically – from where so many of the seafarers came. Merseyside people understand the immensity of the Battle of the Atlantic. With Merseyside’s affinity with the maritime world, and the battle itself, we are delighted to unveil Paul Day’s design which will make such an incredible impact here on the world-famous waterfront. We believe that as the Battle of the Atlantic veterans leave us it is vital that we create a fitting memorial to the lionhearted men and women who served. The memorial will recognise all the nations who took part and will act as a permanent reminder of the incalculable value of peace for future generations. Today we reach out to businesses and the public around Britain - and the world - to back our fundraising drive and help us create a landmark of peace.”

Vice-Admiral Gretton said the memorial will reflect the international nature of the battle recognizing the efforts of British and Allied Merchant Navies and Armed Forces including the United States, Canada, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Poland, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand and Russia. In addition, the monument will also commemorate the thousands of seafarers from around the world who served in Allied Armed Forces and Merchant Navies including India and China.  Former adversaries Germany and Italy will be recognized, underlining the importance of peace.

The memorial will work closely with Merseyside Maritime Museum and National Museums Liverpool as a whole to highlight the project and develop educational projects reinforcing just how fundamental the Battle of the Atlantic was to the war effort. The memorial will also be sited on National Museums Liverpool’s land, between the River Mersey and the Museum of Liverpool.

Janet Dugdale, Director of Museum of Liverpool & Merseyside Maritime Museum, said: “The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest campaign of the Second World War and was for many, the most crucial. Liverpool was where the campaign headquarters were located. Critically, Liverpool and Merseyside was where so many of the seafarers who took part came from. Thus, the communities here understand its immensity, having been so directly affected.

“Not only is it fitting that there is a campaign to raise funds for a memorial, but to locate it at the heart of the Pier Head, facing the River Mersey in the shadow of the Museum of Liverpool, really brings home that such a world event is very much a local, Liverpool story. It will complement the Battle of the Atlantic gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum, where visitors can discover the vital role played by the Merchant Navy in keeping Britain alive during those dark days. A physical memorial will also bring home to generations of people how monumental the Battle of the Atlantic was, and the tragedies and sacrifices made to ensure peace and freedom”.

Sculptor Paul Day said the proposed BOA monument is set to be his largest to date.

“It’s a huge honor and privilege to be involved in this project,” he said. “The Battle of the Atlantic presents such a fertile, thrilling and challenging set of historic circumstances to work with. Despite the ravages of war Liverpool remains a breath-taking city and one of the greatest waterfront skylines in Europe. This sculpture must be able to complement a varied architectural landscape and balance while having a strong visual impact to honour the immense sacrifice of those who fought in the battle.  The plan is scaled at around 28 meters across and four-and-a-half meters the highest point. Each half of the two-piece structure is likely to weigh between 10 and 15 tons. They will be hollow with a stainless-steel armature and bronze cladding. Scale is obviously critical to the impact of a piece in a landscape, which in this case is dominated by Liverpool Museum and the large distances of space which separate one end of the old historic docks to the new dock. Liverpool Museum will be used as a backdrop to create a silhouette evoking the image of liberty ships and commercial maritime vessels. This is an important design feature reflecting the nature of the battle to forge a safe passage for our merchant vessels across the Atlantic. The dual sections will enable the public to walk through and interact with messages and scenes portrayed in friezes along the sides.”

The BOAM campaign spoke to the following veterans in December 2017 about the campaign and their experiences.

Jim Rainsford, aged 92, of Eastham in the Wirral, served as a radar operator on Navy minesweepers during the Battle of the Atlantic. He was later involved in the Normandy Landings for which he received a Legion of Honor medal from the French consulate last year. “The Germans used to drop mines in the approaches to the Lizard targeting ships coming to London across the Atlantic. We used to sweep the Lizard every day and the Germans would put mines down each night. We also used to sweep approaches to the Mediterranean. On one occasion we were homeward bound for Gladstone Dock in Seaforth after setting off from Nova Scotia in Canada with a US convoy. We came across a Danish ship which had been sunk. It must have been a tanker because it was on fire. We picked two up from a crew of 50, the rest perished. One was so badly burn I think he died later. We were just passing the Clyde and a British Destroyer came alongside us with two survivors, so we put them aboard. They were two German U-Boat men.

We only had one mess deck so we all lived together. When the Danish survivor saw the Germans he flew at them. He tried to strangle one because he had just lost 50 shipmates. The radar technology is very sophisticated now, but it wasn’t back then. If there were any floating mines or periscopes we could pick them up. On another occasion between Iceland and the Faroe Islands one of our crew sighted some men in the water, we think from a vessel sunk the night before. We put scrambling nets down the starboard side. We got three men but the others were too weak to climb. We then went down the scrambling nets with a line round us, but we couldn’t hold them because they were covered in oil. They just slid out of our hands. I remember one of them had a Liverpool accent and he was cursing at us not to leave them. But we couldn’t stop. We weren’t allowed to stop because we were on this zig zag course and you could cause a collision. I turned 18-years-old on June 06, 1944, the day we landed in Normandy. We were minesweeping because the ships couldn’t get through, we stopped at Juno beach with the Canadians. There were so many people killed on the beach that day it was dreadful. Around 800 I think. We were told to bring walking wounded back to the UK. The hospital ships were absolutely full within hours. We brought about 20 to Weymouth and we went back again and rescued another 20. After the war my number wasn’t up so I was sent to the Far East, I spent two years in South East Asia looking after the French getting kicked out of Cambodia and Vietnam, then looking after the Dutch getting kicked out of Dutch East Indies. After that the British were getting kicked out of Penang in Malaysia so it carried on.”

Graeme Cubbin, aged 94, of Greasby in the Wirral, was awarded a Battle of the Atlantic medal. Mr Cubbin, who went to sea in 1940 aged 16, survived ship wrecking, capture and a prisoner of war camp in North Africa. He later became a captain for Harrison’s Shipping Company in Liverpool where he remained for his entire career and wrote a book about the company and his experiences in the war. “I was on cargo liners transporting material including ammunition from America back to the UK,” he said. “Not long after joining I was captured on a ship called The Scientist and was a prisoner of war for around 12 months. We were in the South Atlantic and sunk by a German raider. We were picked up as prisoners and eventually finished up in Italian Somali land – Mogadishu. Troops from Kenya including British, African, South African and Rhodesian advanced up through the western desert and swept us up on the way. We were eventually repatriated in 1941. I had a fortnight’s leave and then went back to sea. It was part of my job and my career. I went to all battle fronts in North Africa and the Indian Ocean and I served on many different ships. I served on the Barrister which was wrecked off the coast of Ireland in 1942. There was no radar for our ships and we had no positions after we left Gibraltar. We didn’t really know where we were, so we hit the rocks off the coast of Connemara. After that I was on The Director. She escaped from Bari in Italy where 16 ships were sunk by German bombers. We left with slight damage, but we saw the others loaded with ammunition blown up. A voyage across the Atlantic and back would often take as long as six months. We sometimes went around the Caribbean loading sugar for home use. The next voyage may take us to South Africa or Calcutta. I was a cadet and finished up as a captain in 1986. I was at sea for 33 years before I moved to the office as a superintendent.  I would encourage people to support this fundraising campaign for a dedicated Battle of the Atlantic Memorial.”

Alec Owen, aged 93, of Moreton in the Wirral, served as a Navy Seaman escorting Arctic convoys across the Barents Sea during the Battle of the Atlantic. “I joined the Navy at 18 and served on a Destroyer,” he said. “We escorted merchant ships between Iceland and Murmansk and Archangel in Russia. On my first trip in 1942 the war was raging and we were losing everything. On my first mission we didn’t have any warm clothes and we really struggled with the cold. I loaded ammunition into the guns, we saw ships sunk everywhere and picked up many survivors. One rescue mission involved an American merchant vessel called the SS Penelope Barker which was torpedoed by a U-boat near the North Cape. The ship sank within ten minutes with 70 people on board into freezing arctic water. We managed to save many of the crew but had to leave some because the U-boats were patrolling. I can still see those people we left in the water. It’s difficult to explain what we went through and for people to truly understand the atrocity of the Battle of the Atlantic. I can remember once looking down and seeing a torpedo skimming the side of our ship. I feel a memorial must be created to help us communicate what happened, so that our stories are not forgotten. The memorial will also help to communicate the massive role our merchant navy played alongside the Royal Naval forces.”