To the attached. Here's something you can put on your site if you wish as I think it'll be 'right up your alley', as it were. You'll see it is a photo of a clock that I've sent you. Pay particular notice of the swastika on the left of it. Now, here's the story behind it - or rather the puzzle behind it.

A very good friend of mine, by the name of Paul Grady, showed me the clock as he knows that I have a great interest in trawlers. His great-grandfather (or perhaps he said grandfather, but that is immaterial) was skipper of a Grimsby trawler during WWII. The name of the trawler is not known. The trawler was engaged in some action with a U-Boat and won the conflict by depth-charging and forcing the sub to the surface. Again, the identity of the sub is not known. Anyway, the skipper and some of the crew boarded the sub to acquire some provisions which, as far as I am aware, was what they were allowed to do. The skipper, however, took a fancy to the clock as a souvenir and quickly unscrewed it from the bulkhead. Knowing that he was contravening regulations and would be punished for his actions if discovered, he secreted the clock in a bucket of lard and brought the clock back to the UK. The clock is now in possession of the Grady family and has become something of an heirloom. They, like me, would like to know the names of the two vessels involved and, as your site is more directly involved with WWII trawlers, I thought this may make a nice piece for you and, hopefully, we may be able to discover the vessels' identities.

REPLY:

The story of the U-boat clock was a fascinating story and one that seems to fit with those Churchill's Pirates!

At first I thought it may be connected with one of two trawlers, HMS Northern Chief or HMS Lady Shirley but their stories don't quite seem to fit.

HMS Northern Chief was involved in the capture of U 570 but only after it had been partly damaged by depth charges dropped by a Locheed-Hudson. However, the skipper LT. Beck along with another member of his crew did board by way of Cayly float. See picture below.

Lt. Beck crossing on a Cayly float
to take capture of U 570
(courtesy of
The Imperial War Museum, London)

The Hull built trawler HMS Lady Shirley won a brave battle with U 111 after a pattern of depth charges forced her to surface. Sadly only months later while she was patrolling in the Gibraltar Straits, she was torpedoed and lost with all hands. Most of the crew that were lost would have been the same men that were involved with the sinking of U 111.

However, there were some exceptions a handful of crew members had been replaced, including their skipper Lieutenant Allan Waller RNR who's place had been taken by a Polish officer. So maybe?............ but there is no record of boarding her.

I did read a little while back of a similar incident with a trawler and a U-boat and I remember also that the crew of the trawler boarded her, so I'll have a good look through my books etc. and let you know if I come up with anything.

I must point out that this clock is unlikely to have come from a U-boat. It is a German Kriegsmarine bulkhead clock, but of the type used on larger surface ships - for example - over 400 similar ones were removed from the Prinz Eugen before she was sunk during US nuclear testing after WW2. While it is not impossible to absolutely disprove that it came from a U-boat - particularly a late war u-boat (when materials were running short), there is no real way to verify this - unless you can find some more details on the incident by which it was obtained. However, It does seem unlikely to me that a clock could be recovered from a U-boat after a lost dual (implying gunfire rather than depth charges). There were 3 captures at sea that I am aware of, that might have allowed the recovery of souvenirs - those of U-110, U-570 and U-1024. Both U-110 and U-1024 sank almost immediately or while under tow. U-570 was towed to Iceland and became HMS Graph.

If you can find any more details that could help to tie down the incident in more detail, I'd be delighted to research the events for you, but my gut feeling on this is that the clock is simply a general surface-ship bulkhead clock and not connected to u-boats at all.

If anyone out there can solve the riddle of the clock then drop me a line....
Nick Clark