Vindicatrix Boy

International seafarers’ charity the Sailors’ Society has launched its ‘Sea of Remembrance’ campaign for Merchant Navy Day.

The thought-provoking campaign attracted over 800 flag-bearing messages and donations last year. 

Red Ensign flags were planted at Trinity Gardens in London, in memory of lost loved ones and those currently at sea.

Each of the flags displayed special messages from family members, friends and appreciative supporters.

The 2008 appeal focuses on the sacrifices made for those left behind and the story of August Wallenhaupt, a merchant sailor who served on US flagship SS Puerto Rican in World War II.

Wallenhaupt was the only survivor when the ship was torpedoed off Murmansk and clung to the frozen body of his dead colleague to survive. He was found three days after the ship sunk and survived in freezing conditions and storms, with friends dying around him.

The ‘Sea of Remembrance’ is a heart-warming opportunity for supporters to remember the sacrifices made by seafarers, in history, as well as the present day, who spend many months at sea away from family and loved ones.

The Sailors’ Society’s mission is to replace isolation with belonging for some of the world’s 1.2 million seafarers. The Society provides support through its Port Chaplains, who are based in more than 100 ports around the world.

When City of Port Adelaide Enfield Mayor Gary Johannson decided to grant Freedom of the City to the Merchant Navy on September 3, he recalled his grandfather Fredrick Johannson and his aunt Adelaide Johannson.

Frederick was a merchant seaman who joined the Belfast registered vessel Carmmoney in Gothenberg and signed off  in Port Lincoln in 1909 then settled in South Australia. 

Adelaide Johansson signed on as a Stewardess at Port Victoria in the merchant vessel SS Viking just after World War Two.

She became a Cape Horner on the Viking, which was the last windjammer to leave Australia.

Frederick and Adelaide would have been impressed if they had known that Port Adelaide would become the first port in the world to grant the Merchant Navy this honour on Australia’s first ever Merchant Navy Day.

The Port Adelaide March and Commemoration for Australia’s first ever Merchant Navy Day on September 3 will be the major event in Australia that day so locals should feel proud.

Special Merchant Navy Day Street Flags promoting the historic event are now flying in Port Adelaide two weeks before the event.

On August 27 there will be a special feature section in Messenger Community Newspapers with full details of the event and merchant navy history.

So many people who live in our district have some link with the Merchant Navy and most Australian migrants came here on a Merchant Navy vessel. 

The event will begin at the Fisherman’s Wharf Markets (Birkenhead Bridge end) just after 11 am on September 3 and go along Queens Wharf and down to the old Ports Corporation building for a commemoration service at the Navigator Memorial.

Guest speakers will include the Mayor of Port Adelaide Enfield, Gary Johanson and new SA Veterans Affairs Minister, Michael Atkinson.

Former and serving merchant seamen, Semaphore Port Adelaide RSL veterans, Merchant Navy Association SA,  Vindicatrix Association SA, South Australian Maritime Museum  and the Maritime Union of Australia will be marching with a number of other maritime organisations, relatives and friends of seafarers. 

The internationally renowned South Australian Pipes and Drums will lead the march along Queens Wharf.

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On a recent visit to the UK, James Taylor, President of the Peninsula Ship Society in Hastings, Victoria, met Britain’s oldest living man, World War One veteran, 112-year-old Henry Allingham.

James has written to us about the proclamation of Merchant Navy Day by the Rudd Government and the Port Adelaide Merchant Navy Day March on September 3, which looks like being Australia’s major commemorative event for that day.

“At long last we are in line with the UK after the fantastic work by Ron Wylie, one of our members, ex Sydney.

“I have just returned from the UK attending my Indefatigable training ship OBA reunion, my year 1945, she closed down in 1998 and is now Indefatigable, Headquarters Combined Services Mountain Training Centre.

“I then went to Veterans Week Blackpool 21st to 29th June 2008. What a week of events, fly-pasts of WWII bombers and fighters, latest jets, modern mock tank battle on the beach, free dinner at Blackpool Winter Gardens, luncheons at a different venue, and a great free concert night at the Layton Institute, all dressed in WWII gear, with music and songs from WWII.

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One of the worst shipwrecks ever in South Australian waters will be a central theme of Australia’s first ever Merchant Navy Day in Port Adelaide.

The Merchant Navy Day march along Queens Wharf will finish at the Navigator Memorial, which commemorates the tragic loss of the SS Admella 149 years ago.

New Port Chaplain Robin Trebilcock will conduct a short service there and our photo shows Keith Ridgeway from the South Australian Maritime Museum with a restorer getting the memorial ready for September 3.

Participating in the march, which will begin near Birkenhead Bridge at 11 am on September 3, will be some 160 people representing 44 survivors, victims and rescuers.

All 160 are involved in the Admella 150 Festival which will be held from Thursday August 6 to Sunday August 16, 2009.

The Navigator memorial in St Vincent Street, Port Adelaide, tells the story of her destruction on Carpenter Rocks, 20 miles west of Cape Northumberland, South Australia on August 6, 1859.

The Land Management Corporation is selecting a new waterfront site for the memorial as the building behind it is being redeveloped.

It is hoped that the move can coincide with the the August 2009 Admella 150 Festival.

SS Admella was a 56-metre, 209-ton steamship also fitted with three masts and sails. Her length was 55.6 metres. She left Port Adelaide at 5.30am on Friday August 5, 1859, bound for Melbourne.

Early the following morning she ran on to the Carpenter Rocks almost due south of the present town of Millicent.

Over the next eight days, 89 people lost their lives but, miraculously, about 24 survived, most of them hanging on to the wreck in raging winter seas for the whole time. There was little food, virtually no water and many acts of heroism.

Many ships were wrecked along this part of the Australian coast, both before and after Admella, but this wreck is arguably the most famous.

It is this fame that has brought together the local councils of the areas most impacted by the wreck to create a series of events to mark the 150th anniversary in 2009: the District Council of Grant, which includes Carpenter Rocks and Port MacDonnell, the Glenelg Shire Council, the City of Portland in Victoria, the City of Mount Gambier, the Wattle Range Council and the Robe District Council.

Find out more here or download the Admella Newsletter [PDF, 350Kb].

Left to right: Kevin Jones, Director of the South Australian Maritime Museum, Jamie Newlyn, Maritime Union of Australia, Rod Sawford, former MHR Port Adelaide, Kevin Foley, Deputy Premier and Treasurer and member for Port Adelaide, Alan Griffin MP, Minister for Veterans Affairs, Gary Johanson, Mayor of Port Adelaide and Mark Butler MP, MHR for Port Adelaide at the launch of Merchant Navy Day.
Thousands of Australian merchant mariners served during the two World Wars on Australian, Commonwealth and Allied ships, as well as merchant ships from other nations. Australian and Commonwealth memorials commemorate 435 Australians known to have lost their lives serving in the Merchant Navy.

Mr Griffin said that from this year, Merchant Navy Day would be an occasion to give merchant mariners the prominence in Australia’s wartime history that they deserved.

As with the recently announced Battle for Australia Day, a national day of observance would not detract from the importance of Anzac Day and Remembrance Day and would not be a public holiday.

The banner promotes the Port Adelaide Community Commemorative March to celebrateAustralia’s first ever annual Merchant Navy Day March scheduled for September 3.

A team of local veteran merchant seamen, the Semaphore Port Adelaide RSL and the Seafarers Memorial Committee has been organizing the Port march.

South Australia’s Deputy Premier and Treasurer, Kevin Foley; Port Adelaide Enfield Mayor, Gary Johanson; Commander Craig Pritchard RAN MHR; Mark Butler MP; former MHR Rod Sawford; Ian Kelly, Deputy Commissioner, SA Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Affairs SA staff; Maritime Union of Australia chief, Jamie Newlyn; and a group of merchant navy veterans greeted the Minister.
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With its rich maritime history, it is fitting that Port Adelaide will celebrate Australia’s first national Merchant Navy Day on Wednesday September 3 in nautical style.

All local families with links to the sea are being invited to join the Merchant Navy March leaving the Seafarers Centre at 11 am that day to commemorate all seafarers who have served in war and peace.

The march will go through Black Diamond Square and along the wharf to the old Ports Building.

Serving and former merchant seamen, their families and representatives from other maritime groups including the Maritime Union of Australia will head the March.

The march will conclude with a special commemoration at the superb Navigator memorial to Lost Seafarers by local sculptor Karen Genoff.

Karen has many fine works of art in public locations around Australia.

In granite, lyten steel, breakwater rocks and timber, the Navigator memorial stands outside the old Ports building.

It was unveiled in 1992 for the SA Department of Marine and Harbours Port Adelaide.

This sculpture is to be incorporated in a new waterfront Seafarers Memorial for Port Adelaide.

Karen Genoff is working with the Land Management Corporation in the removal, transport and placement of this sculpture at a waterfront site to be selected.

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When South Australian Premier Mike Rann attended the ANZAC Light on the Water Tribute to the lost crew of HMAS Sydney on ANZAC Eve, SA Branch skipper Tony Iles met him on arrival.

Tony was one of 70,000 fifteen to seventeen year old boys who passed through the merchant navy training vessel Vindicatrix at Sharpness in the UK between 1939 and 1966.

The South Australian branch has regular meetings at the Seafarers Centre in Port Adelaide and is the only one where wives have equal status with the former merchant seamen.

Activities of the Australian branches include volunteer work, participation in a range of ANZAC commemorations, reunions, social functions, Sea Sunday and soon the newly recognised Australian Merchant Navy Day on September 3.

Congratulations to our local community newspaper, the Portside Messenger, for their support for Light on the Water.

The newspaper, journalist Adam Todd and photographers have done a lot to promote the unique Port Adelaide event, as shown by Wednesday’s front page and continuing coverage in this week’s edition.