Publisher's Synopsis
Sunderland Built Merchant Ships Sunk by U Boats in World War One This book tells part of the story, of the former ship building town of Sunderland on the North-East Coast of England and of the many merchant ships that were built in the town, that were sunk by U Boats in World War One. Once dubbed the biggest shipbuilding town in the World by the New York Times, an accolade that still held some truth in the early years of the 20th Century. Sunderland's shipbuilding yards were all based on the River Wear and all were within the boundaries of the town unlike many other great ship building areas of the country. The Tyne, for example, has yards in the town of Jarrow, Hebburn and South Shields and the Clyde has several towns on its banks where ship building occurred. As I write this in 2017, the shipbuilding yards of Sunderland have been quiet for some 33 years a victim of Government and European Union cutbacks. Ship building is today, a dying art in the United Kingdom with a few odd yards building for the much-reduced Royal Navy and smaller boats and ships, for the likes of the off-shore industry. Sunderland has a proud history, an industrial history that lies in its past. There are no ship builders left, no marine engine manufacturers, no coal mines, no ship owners of the likes of James Westoll who ran a fleet of Tramp Steamers who picked up cargoes wherever they could, sailing from port to port arriving at its home port in the UK, perhaps once a year. This book tells the story of each of the 810 ships sunk or damaged by U boat during World War One. It also tells of some, of the famous ships like the Lusitania sunk by U20 in May 1915 and the Carpathia, the ship that rescued several hundred passengers from the Titanic on that fateful April day in 1912. It tells the story of some of the Royal Navy ships sunk in that war, often by U boat or by mine, laid by U Boats such as HMS Hampshire and its famous passenger, Lord Kitchener, who died off the Orkney Isles just a few days after the Battle of Jutland. It tells of the ships sunk with explosives, laid by U boats who stopped the ship, forced its crew to abandon ship, to lay an explosive scuttling charge. It tells of a few French and Italian ships, that suffered massive loss of life and also includes a few of the merchant ships, built in Sunderland, that were victims of the Kaiser's Raiders throughout WW1. The 'Sunderland Snapshots' reflect a little about life in the town of Sunderland, the cost of clothing, cloth and hats, the life and history of the town of Sunderland, it's people, it's heroes during the war and its industries. It tells a little of what the town was like before and after the war, but mostly it's about the ships that were sunk, those that were damaged to live and fight again, some to be sunk in that second great 20th Century conflict. It tells about the enemy, the U boat, their strategy and tactics about some of the U boat captains. It reflects the horror and price of the war at sea, the vital lifeline of the North Atlantic, bringing the food, the fuel and the weaponry to keep Britain fighting.
