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 881 entries in the WW2 Timeline. A small sample of his timeline contributions is shown below.

» 12 Mar 1945: German Type VII-C submarine U-260 was scuttled by her crew at 2230 hours after being mined at 80 metres depth, off the coast of County Cork, southern Ireland. The entire crew were interned in Ireland. The Irish recovered papers and code books from the commanding officer Oberleutnant zur See Klaus Becker together with his personal logbook.

» 15 Dec 1940: Captain J. P. Williams and diver John Edwards "Johnno" Johnstone, aboard the 260-ton coastal steamship Claymore, began to search for the wreck of SS Niagara, which sank in Jun 1940 along with its secret cargo of gold.

» 27 Jun 1944: 53 V-1 flying bombs were launched against the ports of Southampton and Portsmouth in southern Britain but had little effect and the order was rescinded the next day. One of the first V-1 bombs that failed to explode came down at a farm outside Newington providing information on its construction and propulsion. The worst impact of the day was at Gauden Road in Clapham, south London when at a few minutes into the day 11 people, asleep in their houses were killed.

» 8 Feb 1943: Off the Canary Islands, German submarine U-521 (Kapitänleutnant Klaus Heinrich Bargsten) fired a spread of torpedoes at convoy Gibr-2. One of the torpedo hit the large 760-ton Hill-class anti-submarine warfare trawler HMS Bredon (T 223), commanded by T/Lt. John Reginald Fradgley, at 0757 hours. She sank in two minutes, killing Fradgley, two officers, 40 ratings. Bargsten claimed to have sunk a tanker and a corvette with a further ship damaged, although Bredon was the only loss.

» 16 Jul 1943: Italian submarine Dandolo damaged British light cruiser HMS Cleopatra (Captain J. F. Stevens, RN) with a torpedo off Sicily, Italy. HMS Cleopatra would receive temporary repairs at Malta and would later sail for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States for permanent repairs. All told, Cleopatra would be out of action for over a year.

» 1 Mar 1941: German submarines U-95, U-147, and U-552 operated against Allied convoy HX-109 170 miles northwest of Outer Hebrides, Scotland, United Kingdom. After sundown, the 12,062-ton British steam tanker Cadillac, built in 1917, was on route from Aruba for Avonmouth, England, United Kingdom carrying a cargo of 17,000 tons of aviation spirit when she was torpedoed by U-552. The highly flammable cargo immediately caught fire, causing a massive explosion and when the #8 tank blew up on the port side after about four minutes it illuminated all ships in the vicinity. With the ship settling by the bow and blazing furiously on the port side a lot of the crew perished being unable to leave the ship, 35 crew were lost from a total crew of 42. Meanwhile, U-95 sank the ship Pacific; 34 were killed, 1 survived.

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