Remembering World War II

Name: Benjamin McMahon Rank: Chief Steward (Steward-in-charge) Service Number: 144656 Service: SS Hertford, Merchant Navy Date of Birth: October 2, 1909 Place of Birth: Plaistow, London, Essex (East Ham), England Address at Enlistment: Plaistow, London, Essex, England Date of Death: April 17, 1942 Age: 32 Cemetery: Camp Hill Cemetery, Halifax, Nova Scotia Grave: Section R-H99 East, Division 2 Benjamin McMahon was the son of Percy Raymond Martin McMahon (1881-1948) and Nellie M. (Curnick) McMahon (1884-1948), and the brother of Nellie M McMahon (b. 1901), Percy M McMahon (1904-1969), and Jane Anne McMahon (b.1906), and Bessie McMahon (b. 1916). Benjamin’s death certificate indicates his date of birth was October 2, 1911, whereas other records indicate his year of birth was 1910 and a birth record exists in Essex, East Ham, listing his year of birth as 1909. Benjamin’s date of enlistment in the Merchant Navy is unknown but he was serving on the SS Hertford, a refrigerated cargo steamship, during WWII. The British put the SS Hertford into the New Zealand and Australia trades carrying frozen meat carcasses. It was in those trades on 7 December 1940 that the Hertford ran into a mine lain by a German deep-sea raider named Pinguin in Australia’s Spencer Gulf. The ship was in and out of repairs for over a year until January 20, 1942. Two days later, the Hertford loaded general cargo, left Sydney, Australia. She spent eight days in Brisbane loading further general cargo, followed by 6 days in Wellington loading lamb, pork, and beef. She passed through the Panama Canal on March 18-19 and then set course for Halifax, Nova Scotia to join a convoy to Britain. On March 29, 1942, the SS Hertford was zigzagging at 12 knots (22 km/h) when German submarine U-571 fired two torpedoes at her about 200 nautical miles (370 km) south of Halifax. One hit her number four hold near her engine room bulkhead, killing her seventh engineer, a stoker and a greaser who were on watch, and destroying one of her four lifeboats. Hertford settled rapidly by her stern, and her surviving crew abandoned ship in her remaining three lifeboats. At 9:31 pm a further torpedo from U-571 hit her, and she sank four minutes later. The lifeboats became separated. On April 1st, the Glen Line cargo steamship Glenstrae, en route from New York to Halifax, found one of the boats and rescued its 21 occupants. Two days later another lifeboat, commanded by Hertford's Master, John Collier Tuckett, and carrying 18 other members of her crew, reached land at Liverpool, Nova Scotia. Chief Steward Benjamin McMahon was one of the occupants of the second lift boat. Five days later the Furness Red Cross coastal passenger liner Fort Townshend found the remaining boat and rescued its 18 occupants, who included two DEMS gunners. Fort Townshend landed the survivors at Halifax, where some of them were hospitalised with frostbite. One of the Second Engineer's legs was amputated, and both of the refrigeration Second Engineer's legs were amputated below the knee. After landing at Liverpool, NS, Benjamin was transferred to Camp Hill Military Hospital a few days later, where he remained in hospital for 11 days. He was attended to by doctors from April 8 to April 17 but succumbed due to empyema and pneumonia on April 17, 1942, because of exposure at sea in the life boat. 57 men survived the sinking of the Hertford but there were four casualties. Chief Steward Mahon, along with 40-year- old C. Bick, fireman, Hugh McGinnity, 63-year-old greaser, and 22-year-old Seventh Engineer Officer Timothy Gunn Stratton. Bick, McGinnity and Stratton are commemorated on the Merchant Navy’s Tower Hill Memorial in London, England. Benjamin McMahon is interred at the Camp Hill Cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia, his grave inscription reads, “He hath delivered my soul in peace, from the battle that was against me”

Benjamin McMahon

Sources: Commonwealth War Graves Commission findagrave uboat.net ericwiberg.com – SS Hertford England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1837-1915