Armison, H (Harry)
Armison, H (Harry)
Linen Keeper Harry Armison was in the Merchant Navy and served on S.S. Anchises.[1] He was the foster-son of Nellie Gate of Sheffield. His foster-brother, Alec Webster Oates[2] would also die while in the service of the King on the 13th of June 1941. He was a pilot in the Royal Air Force.
Harry’s ship, SS Anchises had been built in 1911 and its last journey was travelling from Australia to Liverpool via the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. It unfortunately would never reach its destination.
On the 27th of February 1941, a lone Fokker-Wulf 200 Kondor[3] bomber attacked the ship, sweeping past it three times and dropping two bombs on each occasion while also strafing the deck with machine gun fire.
The first attack shook the ship. The second damaged it and soon it started taking on water in the engine room. The third unfortunately sprung the plates on the side of S.S. Anchises and abandon ship was called with seven lifeboats being launched.[4]
Of the seven lifeboats, five managed to stay together and all on-board these were rescued. One drifted away and would remain missing for six days due to bad weather, this causing more deaths from over-exposure. The seventh was the last to launch and it held the Captain David Warren James[5] and the last of the crew. It came alongside the rescuing ship and was caught under the ships bow, crushing the lifeboat and killing him and another sailor, who was Able Seaman John Sinnott.[6]
Harry Armison survived these initial incidents but died later from a gangrene infection of his hands and feet caused by exposure and frost bite while on this war operation. It is safe to assume that he was either in the lost sixth lifeboat or the seventh which was crushed.[7]
He is also commemorated on the “Tower Hill” memorial, London.
Date of Death: 20/03/1941 (Aged 39)
Service: Linen Keeper, Merchant Navy, S.S. Anchises (Liverpool)
Burial Location: Londonderry (or Derry), City Cemetery, Section S. Class B. Grave 745D.
[1] SS Anchises was a merchant ship and belonged to the Blue Funnel Line and was launched during 1911.
[2] Alec Webster Oates last resting place is Harare (Pioneer) Cemetery in Zimbabwe
[3] The Fokker-Wulf 200 Kondor was a four-engine all metal monoplane used successfully as a long-range maritime bomber by the Germans. Hitler also favoured it as personal transport.
[4] 12 crew members and 3 passengers died in these initial attacks.
[5] Captain David Warren James is remembered on the Tower Hill memorial.
[6] Able Seaman John Sinnott is remembered on the Tower Hill memorial.
[7] SS Anchises: 156 souls saved, 16 lost.
