Merchant Navy Day

Britain declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939. A few hours later, the British steam passenger ship Athenia was torpedoed in the Atlantic, west of Ireland. It was the British ship to be sunk during the Second World War. It also accounted for the first of some 14.7 million tons of Allied shipping that would be lost during the conflict.

Merchant ships were not designed for warfare and were slow with very little armament. They were especially vulnerable to predation by German U-Boats that were an ever-present threat, lurking beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean’s busy shipping lanes. Nevertheless, the cargo they carried across the world’s oceans was an essential lifeline to the Allied war effort, and to the survival of Britain as an island nation during the most desperate times of the war.

The Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, Darren Chester MP, encouraged all Australians to pause and reflect on the contribution of our merchant mariners, almost all of whom were civilians, and to reflect on their service and sacrifice on this day.

“The Battle of the Atlantic was fought over thousands of miles across the war’s most dangerous shipping lanes. More than 3,000 British and Allied ships were sunk and some 30,000 Allied and merchant mariners were lost.”

While the exact figure will never be known, the Australian War Memorial estimates that more than 800 Australian merchant mariners have lost their lives during times of war since WWI.