Harold Young learnt his trade in sailing ships and is pictured here with the crew of the Loch Trool
Sunderland to Gallipoli
As with so many vessels of that period , the screw steamer SS East Point ’ s story starts in the famous Sunderland shipyards , from where she was launched in 1901 . Built for both passengers and cargo , she was just over 5,000 tonnes , with a length of 119m , a beam of 15.5m and a draught of 8.5m , making her a sizeable ship . The records show that prior to the First World War she made extensive journeys around the UK in addition to many transatlantic crossings .
In early 1915 , she was taken into war service by the Admiralty and left for the Eastern Mediterranean to support Winston Churchill ’ s audacious attempt to knock the Turks out of the war through landings on the Gallipoli Peninsula . She made multiple journeys between the landings and harbours in the vicinity , but while unloading hay at
Suvla Bay on 3 November 1915 , she came under shell fire from a Turkish shore battery .
The ship weighed anchor , and with shells falling all around her attempted to steam out of the bay . Unfortunately , at 2.40pm , a shell landed in the No1 hold , setting fire to hay between the decks . The crew fought the fire using all the methods at their disposal , and must have been utterly dismayed when another shell struck the ship 25 minutes later ,
Damaged but deadly – U-48 ’ s story
Commissioned in August 1914 and launched in 3 October 1915 , U-48 was one of the 178 U-boats that the Kriegsmarine used in the First World War to sink more than eight million tonnes of shipping . By the standards of the time , she was a large , heavily armed submarine with four forward-mounted torpedo tubes and two in the stern . For surface engagements she was launched with two 88mm guns although one of these was subsequently replaced in 1916 with a larger 10.5 mm gun that reduced the chance of her being outmatched in a battle with the increasingly well-armed merchant vessels . She was a successful boat and , under the command of Kapitanleutenant Berndt Buss , the U-48 sank 19 ships between 6 July 1916 and 9 March 1917 . She also enjoyed some fame due to her capture of the steamer Suchan in October 1916 , which was found to have ammunition on board when taken to Germany .
After Berndt Buss was killed , command of U-48 passed to the senior officer of the watch ,
Oberleutenant zur See Hinrich Hashagen , who took the damaged U-48 the long way back to Wilmshaven via Scotland and the Shetland Islands . This was almost certainly to avoid the heavily patrolled and mined Straits of Dover , but was still incredibly challenging
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