Name: Norman Burnell Atwood Rank: Fireman Service: SS Liverpool Packet (Liverpool, Nova Scotia), Canadian Merchant Navy Date of Birth: November 18, 1907 Place of Birth: Riverhead, Barrington, Shelburne Co., NS Date of Death: May 30, 1942 Age at Death: 35 Memorial: Halifax Memorial Reference: Panel 20 Commemorated on Page 88 of the Merchant Navy Book of Remembrance Displayed in the Memorial Chamber of the Peace Tower in Ottawa on February 24 and July 24 Commemorated on the Markland Shipping Company Monument, Brooklyn NS, Waterfront Park Norman Burnell Atwood was the son of Mr. Winford Coleman Atwood (1881-1961) and Mrs. Mabel Edith (Garron) Atwood (1883-1966), of Riverhead in Barrington, Nova Scotia. Norman’s brother Rifleman Percy Coleman Atwood also served Canada in the Second World War with the Royal Rifles of Canada in the Royal Canadian Infantry Corps and died at the age of 20 in the defence of Hong Kong on December 23, 1941. On the night of May 30, 1942, the unescorted SS Liverpool Packet, under the command of Captain Norman Emmons Smith was 15 miles west of Seal Island off the coast of Yarmouth County, Nova Scotia. The ship was on a return trip from New York to Halifax carrying military supplies for an American military base in Newfoundland. The German U-boat U-432 spotted the ship shortly before 9:00 pm on May 30 and fired a torpedo sinking the ship in three minutes. Nineteen members of the crew survived and managed to get into lifeboats. Two crew died, Norman Burnell Atwood and Burns Williams. Nineteen survivors were eventually rescued. The German captain of the U-boat, Heinz-Otto Shaultz, allowed the men to make their way toward the Nova Scotia shore. After twenty hours in the lifeboats, they encountered a lobster fisherman and his sons who took the men to Seal Island. Twelve of the nineteen survivors were from the south shore area of Nova Scotia. Norman Burnell Atwood’s body was not recovered therefore he is remembered on the Halifax Memorial along with 3,256 Canadian men and women who were buried or lost at sea.

Source Photo : Operation Picture Me