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Arkleside - a general history

Completed February 1924; Official No. 146828; Code Letters KQFS.

Owners: 1924 Wear Steam Shipping Co. Ltd. (Thomas Rose) Sunderland; 1927 Waldos Shipping Co. Ltd. (William O. Roberts) Liverpool; 1934 Ardova Shipping Co. London; 1935 Smith, Hogg & Co. West Hartlepool.

Master; 1939 Robert William Edmundson.

March 1839  James Cameron Kippen, chief mate, Frank Christie, William Joseph Vockens, Michael Joseph KellyStanley Webber & Kenneth Roy Elliot were sent to prison for combing to disobey lawful commands, impeding the progress of a voyage & absenting themselves without leave. As the instigator Kippen received two months & the others two weeks.

Crew 1939:

Coulson, engineer, Beaconsfield Street, Hartlepool

Edmunson, Robert William, master, Osmotherley (formerly of Seaton Carew)

Ward, Thomas, South Shields

Uboat.net:

 At 07.00 hours on 16 Sep 1939, U-33 stopped the unescorted Arkleside with a shot across her bow about 150 miles southwest of Lands End. The crew immediately abandoned ship, but the Germans ordered them to reboard their vessel and to follow the U-boat because bad weather prevented a contraband control. At 19.00 hours, the U-boat stopped two French fishing smacks and transferred the British crew to them, while a German boarding party searched the Arkleside. At 21.30 hours, the vessel was sunk by a coup de grâce. The survivors were taken by the French vessels to Concarneau, 60 miles south of Ushant.

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