Peter Mayne Beswick

Name: Peter Mayne Beswick Rank: 3rd Radio Officer Service: MV Amerika, Merchant Navy Date of Birth: December 26, 1920 Place of Birth: Chorlton, Cheshire, England Address: 6 Adswood Road, Cheadle Hulme, England Date of Death: April 8, 1942 Age: 21 Cemetery: St. John’s Cemetery, Halifax, Nova Scotia Peter Mayne Beswick was the son of Peter Beswick (1894-1983) and Matilda Emily (Mayne) Beswick (1897-1985), and the brother of Matilda Alice Beswick (1922-2022) and Maurice Arthur Beswick (1928-2020), the latter of whom also served at sea. Peter’s father served during the First World War with the Manchester Regiment, and his sister ‘Tilda’ served as a Wren (Women’s Royal Naval Service, WRNS) during the Second World War, including service at HMS Glendower in the Snowden District of Wales. Maurice’s son Martin also served in the RAF for 22 years, enlisting at the age of 17. In 1939, Peter was employed as a shop assistant in his father’s hardware and draper business on Adswood Road in Cheadle Hulme. He also contributed to civil defence efforts as a Messenger with the Air Raid Precautions (ARP) Squad. He later entered service as a radio officer in the Merchant Navy and, in 1942, was posted to the MV Amerika, a passenger and refrigerated cargo vessel built in Copenhagen in 1930. While the Amerika was in port in the Bedford Basin at Halifax, Nova Scotia, Peter died of congestive heart failure. His body was transferred ashore to the medical examiner for confirmation of the cause of death, and he was interred at St. John’s Cemetery in Halifax. A memorial to him was placed at the Davenport Methodist Church in Chorlton, the church he had attended; the memorial consisted of a wooden lectern with a carved angel and a brass dedication plaque. During his service in the Merchant Navy, Peter worked alongside another radio officer, Johan Peter Skov, born in 1905. The Amerika was later sunk in 1943, and Johan was among the survivors; he survived the war. After the war, he married Peter’s sister Matilda, whom he had met through Peter during periods of leave when he visited the Beswick family home. Matilda and Johan married on February 28, 1945, and later settled permanently in Denmark, where they lived for the remainder of their lives. Just over a year after Peter’s death in April 1942, the MV Amerika was lost on April 22, 1943, when it was torpedoed by the German submarine U‑306 while travelling as a straggler from Convoy HX‑234 south of Cape Farewell, Greenland. The attack occurred shortly before two o’clock in the morning, and the ship sank quickly with heavy casualties among the crew, naval gunners, and Royal Canadian Air Force personnel who were being transported as passengers. Of the 140 people on board, 86 were killed and 54 survived. The survivors, including Johan, were later rescued by HMS Asphodel and taken to Greenock, Scotland.

Sources: findagrave.com War Memorials Online