Re: Canadians Hey you Canuks?
Posted by:
Brian Donald
()
Date: January 26, 2004 11:14PM
<HTML>Congratulations Doug!-it was the 'Avondale Par'k but according to the 'Edinburgh Evening News 'archive(I write for that newspaper in Scotland's fair capital city the sinking took place off the Island of May(a notorious ships graveyard over the centuries, that's why it's so popular with modern scuba divers)at the mouth of the Firth of Forth ON MAY 8th only hours before VE Day kicked in.
Although a Canadian registered ship 'THe Avondale Park was crewed by merchant seamen from the North-East England towns of South Shields and also Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.
Indeed, most sadly the 'Edinburgh Evening' news recounts that a Mrs Falconer wife of one of the Avondale's crew was in the act of putting up VE-Day street bunting to celebrate the war's end when the people arrived to tell her that her husband had been killed during the sinking of the Avondale Park.
What makes all this even more poignant is that the Edinburgh Evening News had carried, two days before the attack by that U-Boat(which did not surrender until May 13 1945 in Dundee, Scotland's harbour.)a photograph of top Kriegsmarine brass negotiating the instrument of Surrender of all Axis forces in Norway in a large mansion house in Barnton, an upmarket suburb of Edinburgh.
The other ship to be sunk in that same May Island attack along with the Avondale Park was the Norwegian freighter 'Sneland' these were the last two ships sunk by German U-Boat action in WW2.</HTML>
Although a Canadian registered ship 'THe Avondale Park was crewed by merchant seamen from the North-East England towns of South Shields and also Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.
Indeed, most sadly the 'Edinburgh Evening' news recounts that a Mrs Falconer wife of one of the Avondale's crew was in the act of putting up VE-Day street bunting to celebrate the war's end when the people arrived to tell her that her husband had been killed during the sinking of the Avondale Park.
What makes all this even more poignant is that the Edinburgh Evening News had carried, two days before the attack by that U-Boat(which did not surrender until May 13 1945 in Dundee, Scotland's harbour.)a photograph of top Kriegsmarine brass negotiating the instrument of Surrender of all Axis forces in Norway in a large mansion house in Barnton, an upmarket suburb of Edinburgh.
The other ship to be sunk in that same May Island attack along with the Avondale Park was the Norwegian freighter 'Sneland' these were the last two ships sunk by German U-Boat action in WW2.</HTML>
