World War II Database

ww2dbaseEver since his school days in the United Kingdom, Hugh Martyr had been interested in history, particularly naval history. His interest in history later expanded to cover the American Civil War and the German V-weapons campaign against London. He is also an re-enactor and organizer of major re-enactment events, including the 200th anniversary of Waterloo event where over 8,000 were on the field. He joined the WW2DB team in 2018.

Photographs/Maps Contributions

Timeline Contributions

Hugh Martyr has also contributed 855 entries in the WW2 Timeline. A small sample of his timeline contributions is shown below.

» 25 Aug 1941: The 25 survivors of Norwegian merchant steamer Spind, sunk by German submarine U-552 two days prior off the coast of the Iberian Peninsula, were landed in Gibraltar.

» 7 Mar 1943: The 5,323-ton British merchant steamer Sabor, built in 1920, was en route from Port Said, Mombasa, Tamatave, and Durban for Table Bay and Rio De Janeiro carrying a cargo of 1,100 tons of salt ballast and 63 mail bags when she was torpedoed by German submarine U-506 (Kapitänleutnant Erich Würdemann) off of Mossel Bay, South Africa and sunk. Six crew lost from a total crew 58. The master, 41 crew members and nine gunners were picked up by the SAAF crash launch R-8 and landed at Mossel Bay.

» 26 Mar 1943: German submarine U-339 was seriously damaged by six depth charges from a British Catalina aircraft from the Faeroe Islands (190 Squadron RAF, pilot J. Fish), and was forced to return to Trondheim, Norway. Once there U-339 was deemed unfit for service and was then transported to Kiel, Germany.

» 18 Jul 1945: American naval land-based aircraft attacked targets off Kawajiri and Tsushima Island, Japan; the 1,368-ton merchant steamer Chishima Maru and the cargo steamers Tagami Maru and Shintai Maru were sunk.

» 12 Feb 1940: The Norwegian freighter Nidarholm was torpedoed amidships just after 0930 hours by U-26 (Kapitänleutnant Heinz Scheringer) after she had been ordered to stop west of Ireland. The explosion cut the ship in two, the bridge section flying high before crashing overboard. The aft section caught fire with burning cotton bails floating around the lifeboats. The submarine went around the lifeboats and fired between them and the wreck which was not sinking. The Nidarholm's master John Blakseth thought that the Germans were warning him not to approach the burning wreck. The freighter Berto, another Norwegian merchant picked the survivors up and took them to Gibraltar.

» 19 Feb 1941: British submarine HMS Upholder (Lieutenant Commander M. D. Wanklyn, RN) attacked a convoy West of Tripoli, Libya. Two torpedoes were fired but no hits were obtained. The target was the German transport Heraklea (1,927-ton). She was in convoy with the German merchants Arta (2,452-ton), Menes (5,609-ton) and Maritza (2,910-ton) escorted by the Italian destroyers Freccia and Saetta. Heraklea sighted the two torpedo tracks and turned sharply to starboard to comb the tracks.

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