Jack Byrne

My mum and dad both lost their fathers when they were young, in the same year, 1944, not a good year for my grandfathers, sixteen years before my birth. I never got to meet either, and because photographs of working-class people were scarce at the time, I had never seen an image of either. Both men who grew up yards from each other on Strand Street in Wicklow Town would die abroad, in very different circumstances, part of the long story of those who left Ireland never to return.

However, Thanks to Jim Kenny, a Liverpool historian with an interesting Facebook page I was introduced to http://www.irishmariners.ie/searchdatabase.php and to the only photo I know of my grandfather, Charles Hunter. If your grandfather was in the Merchant Marine between 1918 and 1921, there is a good chance he was issued an identity card bearing his photograph. Details of how to recover the photo are available on the Irish Mariners site.

While I was working on Shanghai’d, a novel that deals with the expulsion of Chinese seamen from Liverpool following WW2, which will be published later this year. I became acutely aware of the dangers of life at Sea..

Being a part of the Merchant Marine was as dangerous as any military posting during the Second World War. Merchant Seamen died at a rate of 1 in 26, which was only surpassed by personnel in Bomber Command who flew regular sorties over occupied Europe and Germany.

The explosion occurred under the port side aft. There was no flash but a column of water was thrown up on the port side. I was on watch on the bridge, but it was impossible to see the full extent of the damage as the after end of the ship was completely blown off and she sank immediately. I found myself in the water, and managed to climb on a piece of debris, which I recognised as being part of the wheelhouse, on looking round i was just in time to see the bows of the vessel rise high into the air with the forward hatch showing above the water, she then half rolled over to the port, and slid under, disappearing within a few seconds of the explosion.  

The above passage is from an unnamed survivor from the SS Brackenfield sunk in the English Channel on the 10th of June 1944. Mr Charles Hunter of King St, Garston, my mum’s dad,  was one of the 10 unlucky crew members that cold dark night on route to resupply the troops at Juno beach as part of the D Day landings. Carrying ammunition, the Brackenfield once hit stood little chance of survival and as related above she went down in minutes if not seconds, giving those below decks very little chance of survival. Those who were thrown clear by the torpedo attack would have to survive the cold waters until a Motor launch picked them up. If it was not enough to be clinging to debris in the Channel in the middle of the night, one of the other casualties in the same convoy that night was a tanker, The Ashanti carrying fuel, and the incendiary cargo managed to set the sea ablaze, and our unnamed seaman’s report.

…at the time of the explosion I was only 50 yards from the vessel’s starboard side, with the blazing oil drifting toward me. At 0345 after 35 minutes in the water a motor launch picked me up at which time I had drifted to within 10 yards of the blazing oil, and had given up hope of being saved.      

The SS Brackenfield was part of a convoy, a wartime strategy of grouping merchant vessels with limited military escorts in order to protect them. The reality was that at times the convoys became turkey shoots for U boats and wolfpacks in the Atlantic and Eboats in the Channel. My grandfather never returned from his voyage on the Brackenfield, left with six children; his widow struggled to survive, but at least she knew what happened.

Hundreds of Chinese Seamen, many having survived the rigours of the North Atlantic, were deported from Liverpool without notice following the war. Their wives and children left without a breadwinner or explanation as husbands and fathers were sent into the maelstrom of the civil war in China, never to return or be heard of again.

My own family were immigrants and seafarers and for me this is Liverpool story, one that should circulate among us as a warning of what happens when deportations and racism are back on the agenda.

My novel ‘Shanghai’d’ will be published by Northodox Press in the autumn of 2026.