Loss of S.S. Delhi, 13 December 1911, Pt 1
January 2nd, 2009 From
>Date: Sun, 21 Sep 1997 23:16:40 -0600
>From: Brooks A Rowlett
>Organization: None whatsoever
>X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01-C-MACOS8 (Macintosh; I; PPC)
>To: “C. Patrick Hreachmack”
> “Jim O’Neil”
> Mahan Naval History Mailing List
> MARHST
> WWOne Mailing List
>Subject: Loss of S.S. Delhi, 13 December 1911, Pt 1
>Precendence: bulk
>Sender: mahan-owner@microworks.net
>Reply-To: mahan@microworks.net
>
>Brooks here. This posting is going to 3 appropriate mailing lists
>and a few friends who may find it of interest.
>
>Background. I have a friend here, a military collector who particulary
>likes Medal (award) groupings – the person’s set of decorations – from
>British soldiers and sailors. He recently acquired a medal group of
>some interest as follows, in that the sailor, one George Henry Spencer,
>possessed service medals for both World Wars, as well as the “Board of
>Trade Bronze medal for Saving Life at Sea”.
>
>With the medal group, my friend acquired what I take to be the actual
>service record, a large parchment sheet, which the serviceman carried
>with him from depot to depot and ship to ship, and which was filled with
>notes, evaluation reports from his ship’s Captain, and the like. The
>bare outlines of his service record are as follows: Born 24 November
>1888 Notham Parish Southampton; 5 feet 4-1/2 inches tall; his service
>recordslists “numerous tattoos” as distinguishing marks. He joined
>”St Vincent” (shore station) at his enlistment on 6 September 1904. He
>served primarily in cruisers in the pre-War and WWI periods, serving on
>the elderly cruiser LEVIATHAN during WWI. Between the wars he served in
>several QUEEN ELIZABETH and ‘R’ class battleships, going back to
>cruisers in the 1930’s. On note of interest here is that he detached
>from HMS SUSSEX (County class heavy cruiser) on 3 March 1938 to serve in
>a vessel noted as “St. Angelo II” (Hostile)” untill detaching from her
>on23 May 1938 at Pembroke Dockyard. He spent the last two years of WWII
>at HMS VICTORY presumably doing shore work, and was discharged finally
>as a Chief Petty Officer, 14 August 1945.
>
>Obviously, my first question, can anyone provide further information on
>the “ST. ANGELO II (hostile)”. Was this some blockade-running vessel
>intercepted and taken into custody during the Spanish Civil War?
>
>To continue: the package my friend bought also contained a passcard,
>and Mr. Spencer’s handwritten account of the event which resulted in
>his receipt of the Lifesaving Medal. The passcard says:
>
> “INVESTITURE BY THE KING”
>
> in larger type:
> “Board of Trade Bronze Medal
> for Saving Life at Sea.”
>
> smaller type again:
> ” TO BE DECORATED.”
>
>(signature line, with “George Spencer”)
>
>down the left side, in smaller type than elsewhere used:
>”This card to be given to the Lord Chamberlain
> on entering the presence of The King”
>
>My friend passed me a typewritten transcription of the the handwritten
>account. This presented an opportunity for me to test the optical
>character recognition (OCR) software with my scanner. In this and
>the next two posts, I am presenting the result. All scanner-induced
>errors are cleaned up; the remaining text is reproduced with the
>original spelling and grammer and punctuation or lack thereof in the
>account. It makes fascinating reading.
>
>
>” The Wreck of S.S. “Delhi” off Cape Spartel
> N.W. Coast of Africa 13th December 1911
>
>Before I start to relate what happened I must state that I was serving
>onboard H.M.S. “Duke of Edinburgh” as an able seaman. Now on the night
>of the 12th December 1911. We gave a farewell concert on the Quarter
>Deck before leaving for Portsmouth to give Xmas leave which we were all
>anxiously looking forward to it was quite late when the concert finished
>and in the service it is the custom to unrig the stage and decorations
>right away and it was near Midnight when we finished. We had not been
>turned in very long when we received an S.O.S. and the “Duke of
>Edinburgh being emergency ship it was our job to answer the call. So we
>slipped our wires and proceeded to the assistance of S.S. “Delhi” which
>had stranded off Cape Spartel.”
>
>TO BE CONTINUED……