AS THE merchant ship’s very soul groaned in its death throes, wallowing amid the pounding Atlantic swell on October 19, 1940, courageous men still combed her lower decks looking for life.
As they shone their torches around the bowels of the SS Assyrian, which was torpedoed while sailing from Halifax to Liverpool as part of Convoy SC7, they heard a cry.
Flashing their lights on a corner, they saw the blackened face of a young man, gasping for life. Then they saw his entrails ripped from his body, his splintered limbs hanging by scorched and torn muscles from his body.
This was 21-year-old Thomas Burke, from Scotland Road, who was due to get married when his ship came home.
All the rescuers could do was to reassure him they had heard his last prayer and messages to his loved ones, as he expired in this God-forsaken floating coal hole.
Thomas Burke was a trimmer; a filthy, thankless, but vital job wheeling coal from the ship’s bunkers to the boilers so stokers could shovel it into the furnaces.
Yet, it was because of the sacrifice of tens of thousands of men like him that Britain was able to turn the tide of the Battle of the Atlantic and resist being invaded by Nazi Germany.
We only know young Thomas Burke’s name thanks to the persistence of John Livingston, 80, who matched official sources with a register of lost Merchant Navy men he found in Our Lady & St Nicholas, Liverpool’s “sailors’ church”.
This is an example of John’s determination, a man who is dedicated to resuscitating the campaign to save the last Battle of the Atlantic warship, HMS Whimbrel, and bring her home to Liverpool.
The campaign, long-supported by the Daily Post, started with John and it looks like its successful end will be due to his tenacity.
Last Tuesday, John paid his own £40 fare to London to attend a meeting in the House of Commons, with Culture and Heritage Secretary Andy Burnham, Leigh MP, arranged on his behalf by Louse Ellman, Liverpool Riverside MP.
Also present was Martyn Heighton, the influential director of the National Historic Ships’ register.
Such was Mr Burnham’s fascination with the project that this 30-minute meeting ran to an hour.
The project to return Whimbrel to Liverpool unexpectedly stalled last year.
The newly-appointed Egyptian Minister of Defence suddenly refused to let the ship’s current owners, the Egyptian Navy, sell her.
The HMS Whimbrel Battle of the Atlantic Memorial Ship trust agreed to buy the ship for £250,000, using a donation from the Duke of Westminster. His Grosvenor Liverpool One development runs adjacent to Whimbrel’s proposed permanent berth in East Canning Dock.
A further £750,000 would be paid to the Egyptians for initial restoration.
But the Egyptian defence minister wants £1m for the warship alone, which is unacceptable to the UK Charities Commission, being four times her scrap value. This put the trust in limbo.
“Andy Burnham was very friendly and eager to listen, and I used every moment to press the case for saving Whimbrel,” says John.
“His parting words were, ‘John, you can rest assured that I am fully supportive of this project. I shall get in touch with the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, to try and break this log-jam’.”
Britain’s ambassador to Egypt, Dominic Asquith, is also keen on the project, which will also honour the many Egyptian seamen who lost their lives in the Battle of the Atlantic. Could John’s actions finally create Britain’s first memorial to this heroic six-year struggle?
