Bradford City on the High Seas In all four ships named Bradford City plied the high seas. Three of the four were sunk. In light of City’s plunge from the Premiership to League Two, you would be forgiven for thinking that the unfortunate vessels had a lot in common with the football club whose name they carried. The ships were named Bradford City due to a business link between the Reardon-Smith Line of Cardiff and Bradford brothers Fred and Priestley Mitchell. They were drapers based at 13 Harris Street and later Eastern House. The relationship must have been strong, as the first Bradford City was owned by the Reardon-Smith subsidiary the Bradford Steamship Company of 1 Pier Head Chambers, Bute Street, Cardiff. Bradford City (1)
The first Bradford City was built by Ropner & Sons of Stockton-on-Tees. North Eastern Marine Engineering of Sunderland supplied the coal-burning engine. The 3,638-ton ship cost £33,500 to build. She entered the Registrar of Shipping at noon on 12 February 1910. The Bradford City had Cardiff as her homeport. She worked the traditional coal out-grain home Atlantic trade routes. On 8 August 1913 her homeport was changed to Bideford in Devon. The First World War saw the emergence of the submarine as a major weapon of war. With the German surface fleet being confined to harbour by the might of the Royal Navy, the only effective response the German’s had was its submarines – or U-boats as they were commonly known. The U-boats would often surface to sink a merchant ship by gunfire, rather than waste a precious torpedo. The Royal Navy responded by fitting out merchant vessels with hidden guns. They became known as Q-ships and during the early years of the war they accounted for a third of the U-boats sunk. In the autumn of 1915 the Bradford City was requisitioned by the Royal Navy to be converted into a Q-ship. She was fitted with two four-inch guns, a 2½-pounder gun and a maxim machine gun. Looking like the innocent merchant ship she used to be, the Bradford City hoped to entice a U-boat to the surface. When the submarine came within range, the guns would be uncovered and the crew would hope to sink the submarine before it could dive. The Bradford City commenced service as a Q-ship on 16 October 1915, operating out of Gibraltar. With Lieutenant-commander Robert CC Smart at the helm, she patrolled the Mediterranean. The ship used dummy funnels, names and colours to avoid being recognised as a Q-ship. As well as using her own name, she also became Ballistan and Saros. Panic parties were formed, when a U-boat came into sight they would man the lifeboats in a chaotic manner and abandon their ship. The gun crews would remain hidden, willing the U-boat to come within range of the guns. As soon as that happened, the white ensign would race up the mast and the guns would be uncovered. The guns crews would then open rapid fire on the U-boat, hoping to sink the submarine before she could dive to safety. On 30 October 1916 the Bradford City was thirteen miles off Cape Sebastian, near Cadiz, when she was attacked by U34. The engine room was ordered to make smoke to make it appear as though the ship was trying to flee. At the same time the engines were ordered to slow. However, Kapitan-Leutnant Claus Rucker on U34 was cautious and didn’t close the Bradford City. The panic party was ordered to abandon ship. As they began piling blankets into the lifeboats the U-boat began shelling the ship. Lieut-Commander Smart ordered the white ensign raised and the guns opened fire on the submarine. The U-boats gun crew made a bolt for the hatches and the submarine rapidly left the area. The crew of the Bradford City quickly set to work changing the appearance of the ship. They painted the funnel and hoisted the Spanish flag. However, no further attacks were made on the ship. Incidentally, the Q-ship Privet sank U34 in November 1918. Three days after their encounter with U34 the Bradford City found itself in action again. On 2 November 1916 the ship was approaching the Gibraltar-Malta shipping lanes near the Cani Rocks. At 16.30 a shot was heard and a submarine spotted 7,000 yards off the starboard beam. The Bradford City changed course and steered straight towards the U-boat. Several shots passed close over the bridge, before one hit the ship. The submarine slowly turned to get on a parallel heading with the ship. For fourteen excruciating minutes Lieut-Commander Smart tried to manoeuver the U-boat into a favourable position regarding the setting sun. At 16.44 the Bradford City opened fire at 5,500 yards. The U-boat crew, some of who had been sitting around smoking, rapidly disappeared below. Ten rounds were fired at the U-boat before she dived at 16.50. The crew of the Bradford City were convinced that they had hit the U-boat and some thought her sunk. However, the U-boat surfaced once again, only to submerge before the guns could open fire again. At 17.15 a torpedo passed just ahead of the ships bows. The Bradford City zigzagged at full speed and an anxious time was spent until midnight because of a full moon. However, no further attacks were made. On 16 August 1917 the Bradford City was on patrol in the Straits of Messina between Italy and Sicily. Eight miles off San Remo she was torpedoed by the Austro-Hungarian submarine U28. Though the ship sank quickly, all the crew were picked up unharmed by a French fishing boat. The first Bradford City lies in position 38.10N, 15.36E on the seabed. The submarine U28, captain Zdenko Hudcek, was interred at the end of the war in the Italian port of Pola. She was scrapped in 1919. Bradford City (2) The British merchant fleet suffered heavy losses at the hands of the U-boats during the First World War. In response the Parliament passed the Ministries and Secretaries Act 1916. A shipping controller was appointed with a brief to provide and maintain an efficient supply of shipping. Plans were quickly drawn up for a series of standardised vessels of two types ‘A’ and ‘B’. The latter having two decks as opposed to the formers single. All the vessels received the prefix ‘War’ to their names. The second Bradford City was laid down by Craig Taylor & Company of Stockton-on-Tees as the War Fox (II). Blair & Company also of Stockton supplied her coal-burning engines. War Fox (II) was launched on 18 December 1918. However, as the war had ended the previous month, she was surplus to requirements and was sold to the St Just Shipping Company (a subsidiary of the Reardon-Smith Line) for £174,175. She was completed as Bradford City in March 1919. At 5,261 tons she was much larger than her predecessor. After ten peaceful years of service with the Reardon-Smith Line she was sold for £43,000 to the French company Chargeurs Reunis in 1929. She was renamed Fort Medine. The Second World War saw Fort Medine thrust into Atlantic convoy duties. After the fall of France in 1940 many French flagged vessels sailed to Britain to avoid being interred by the Germans. Fort Medine arrived at Falmouth on 23 June 1940. She was taken over by the Ministry of War Transport and placed under the management of her former owners the Reardon-Smith Line. Manned by a Free French crew under the command of Louis Rebour, she returned to the Atlantic convoys bringing iron ore from Wanaba in Canada, to Port Talbot in South Wales. On 31 January, loaded with 7,000 tons of iron ore, Fort Medine joined the thirty-eight ship convoy SC 21, which left Halifax, Nova Scotia, bound for Liverpool on 31 January 1941. On 20 February 1941 Fort Medine left the convoy in the Bristol Channel in order to make her way to Port Talbot. Off Swansea she struck a mine. The ship broke in two and sank. The captain, 33-year-old Louis Rebour, was seriously wounded and died two days later. The mine that accounted for Fort Medine was one of 1,000 aerial mines dropped by German aircraft in British shipping lanes. After the war Louis Rebour was buried at his hometown of Saint-Quay-Portrieux. Due to her position in shallow water, Fort Medine was partially broken up for scrap. Today she lies only forty-eight feet beneath the waves at low tide and is a popular dive site. Bradford City (3)
The 1935 British Shipping (Assistance) Act was designed to reduce the overall tonnage of the British merchant fleet and provide much needed work for the shipyards. The act offered low interest loans, usually deferred, to companies who scrapped two tons for every one built. It was popularly known as the ‘scrap and build scheme’. The Reardon-Smith Line offered Indian City and Orient City for scrap in return for a loan of £88,554. An order for a 4,950 ton ship was placed with Furness Shipbuilders of Haverton Hill, near Middlesbrough. The ship was fitted with an oil engine from the Sunderland firm Doxford. The new ship was named Bradford City. She joined the Reardon-Smith Line in June 1936. The Bradford City sported a large black S on the funnel. Sailors quipped that the S stood for starvation, as the Reardon-Smith Line had a reputation for being a bad employer among some seamen. The ship entered the deep sea tramping trade, taking varied cargos to all parts of the globe. She had only been in service three years when the Second World War broke out. The following account of her final days was pieced together with the aid of crew members A Blackhall and Frank Rowe. The ship was discharging a cargo of sugar at Greenock when Frank joined as junior engineer in February 1941. The forty-four strong crew included six DEMS Army gunners and two naval ratings. They manned the ships defensive guns which comprised of one 4.7 inch anti-submarine gun, one 12 pounder and a Bofers anti-aircraft gun. The crew believed that the ship was the first merchant vessel to receive the famous Bofers AA gun. Under the command of Plymouth born captain Henry Paul, they sailed in ballast for Newport. At the South Wales port a varied cargo was loaded, including coal, general army stores, aeroplanes (crated on deck), Bob Martin’s tablets and sixty crates of whiskey. The whiskey was closely guarded during loading and it was tightly packed deep in number three hold. However, during the voyage the crew managed to liberate at least three bottles! They sailed for the Greek port of Piraeus. However, before they arrived the German Army overran the port. They were instructed to make for Crete, but an attack on the island by paratroopers forced anther diversion, this time to Port Said. The crated planes were unloaded and the ship moved to Alexandria to discharge the remainder of her cargo. The ship was then ordered to traverse the Suez Canal en route to Karachi where she was to load railway equipment. However, with the situation in the Mediterranean and North Africa finely in the balance the ship was instructed to anchor and await events. She remained at anchor for a month. During this period of inactivity, three-foot long weeds grew on her keel. The crew cleared what they could, but when they eventually departed for Port Louis in Mauritius, the ships speed was down to nine knots. The crew were expecting the ship to be placed in the dry dock in order to have her keel cleaned, but in the event the loaded 9,000 tons of sugar and 500 tons of raw spirit in drums. The crew believed that the ship was just two feet too long for the Port Louis dry dock. So at a reduced speed the ship set sail for the UK via Table Bay and Freetown. On leaving South Africa rumour had it that the ship would travel via Trinidad in order to avoid active U-boats operating off the East African coast. It became academic when at 6am on 1 November 1941 she was torpedoed by U68. Alfred Blackhall was washing his clothes when he heard a terrific explosion. He said: ‘A huge column of water cascaded down onto the ship. All of a sudden there was complete silence. The engines had stopped’. The ship was hit on the port side in number two hold just forward of the bridge. The raw spirit immediately caught fire. The radio operator managed to send the SSS signal (the code for a submarine attack) before the power failed. Alfred Blackhall’s lifeboat was launched without difficulty from the lee side of the ship. However, the other lifeboat struggled to get away due to the heavy sea on the other side of the ship. In the event the crew of forty-four got away safely. The U-boat then surfaced only thirty feet from the stricken vessel. The submarine was in fact so close that it had to dive again to avoid a large piece of the ships side that was protruding at a right angle due to the explosion. The ships bridge was by now enveloped in smoke and was catching fire. The Bradford City then sank rapidly by the head; the ships siren began to sound as though in defiance as she made her final plunge. There was an explosion from the tanks and water rose into the air. Then she was gone leaving a vast mushroom of black smoke in her wake. The submarine surfaced again near the lifeboats. Frank Rowe was surprised at the size of the submarine and distinctly remembered the ace of clubs painted on the conning tower. Stories of ships crews being machine-gunned were rife, so everyone in the lifeboats sat very still nervously awaiting their fate. The U boat closed the lifeboats and questioned Captain Paul about his cargo and destination. The U-boat captain seemed disinterested in the answers Captain Paul gave and many of the crew were of the opinion that the U-boat captain already knew where the Bradford City was headed. On board U68 was pre-war journalist Jochem Brennecke. After the war he published an account of the sinking. U68 had been on patrol for four months under the command of Korvettenkapitan Karl-Freidrich Merten. The submarine had been replenished at sea by supply ships. Brennecke was quickly on the bridge of the submarine when she surfaced. He said: ‘We couldn’t believe our eyes, the amount of running around going on making ready the lifeboats’. The U-boat crew manned their gun and noted that the Bradford City’s guns were not manned and indeed were still covered over. The submarines lookouts constantly swept the horizon as they closed to lifeboats. After questioning Captain Paul the submarine commander shouted ‘good luck’. The U-boat then dived and left the men in the lifeboats to their fate, far out in the South Atlantic. The only casualty of the attack was the boson who had been paralysed from the waist down. Captain Paul took charge of one lifeboat, while the chief officer swan across to the other boat. After a brief discussion it was decided to head for the African coast. Although the island of St Helena was closer, given the rudimentary navigation equipment they had in the lifeboats, the chances of missing the small island were so great that the longer voyage to Africa was considered the best option. During the night the lifeboats were separated. Five days after the sinking Frank Rowe’s lifeboat landed on the Namibian coast. They made a huge SOS sign in the dunes and thankfully an aircraft spotted this. It took South African troops another two days to find the stranded sailors. The second lifeboat with seventeen-year-old Alfred Blackhall on board spent eleven days at sea. They had run out of water and were surviving on biscuits, when on their tenth night they spotted a light. At dawn the next day they landed on a beach near a fishing village in the bay of Tigres Bahiados, Angola. They were later taken to Cape Town on a neutral liner. They had hoped to be flown back to Britain, but instead they were given the SS Botlea, which was at Cape Town minus a crew. They loaded a cargo of iron ore and once again departed for Britain. This time, despite having a decrepit ship and a heavy load, they made it home safely. U68 was sunk north west of Madeira on 10 April 1944 by aircraft operating from the American carrier USS Guadalcanal. Bradford City (4)
The fourth and final Bradford City was launched on 9 November 1942. The Sunderland firm William Doxford & Sons built her at a cost of £230,000. The 7,266-ton ship joined the Reardon-Smith Line during February 1943. Unlike her sisters this Bradford City survived the war and spent many years in the deep sea tramping trade. In early 1962 she was sold to the Vergocean Steamship Company of London for £120,000. On 12 April 1962 the Bradford City left Cardiff for the Sorel shipyard on the St Lawrence River in Canada. The ship emerged in June bearing her new name Vercharmian. Six years later Vercharmian was en route from Hong Kong to Port Campha, Vietnam whilst her sale to Jebshun Shipping Company of Hong Kong was being finalised. However, the ship was grounded and suffered an engine failure. A maritime legal case ensued and only after it was settled did the sale go through. On 9 April 1968 the majority of her cargo was transhipped to the Shun Tia. Vercharmian then sailed to Hong Kong for repairs. Though she arrived at Hong Kong on 19 April she didn’t enter service until October. She began working between China and Japan with a new name, the Shun Wah. When the Jebshun Shipping Company ceased trading in 1971, the Shun Wah was sold to a ship breakers. She made her final voyage to Tadotsu, Japan arriving on 3 May 1972. There ended sixty-two years of Bradford City’s on the high seas. Sources: Alfred Blackhall Frank Rowe | ||
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