Merchant Navy Day commemorated at Wick ceremony
Merchant Navy Day was marked in Wick today, although the coronavirus restrictions made it a more low-key occasion than usual.
Members of the Caithness branch of the Merchant Navy Association were unable to have a church service this year but still felt it was important to pay their respects.
A group of 14 people – including representatives of the local Royal British Legion Scotland branch and Wick RNLI – took part in a short commemoration at the Kirkhill memorial garden area across from St Fergus Church.
“It was much scaled down,” branch secretary Mike Coupland said. “There’s not enough of us to parade any more, and we can’t have a church service, so this was the least we could do. It had to be done.
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6 / 6“It marks the start of the war for the Merchant Navy when the ship the Athenia, which didn’t even know the war had started, got torpedoed.”
The sinking of the Athenia by a U-boat on the first day of World War II – September 3, 1939 – led to the annual Merchant Navy Day commemoration being set up 20 years ago. It is observed on that date or close to it.
After a two-minute silence at today's event, skipper George Carter stepped forward to lay the wreath. It was carefully attached to the memorial garden wall in between the engraved plaques honouring those who lost their lives when the Merchant Navy vessel Isleford sank in Wick Bay in 1942 and the Caithness men who died when the Jervis Bay was sunk by the German ship Admiral Scheer in November 1940.
Piper Vida Sinclair, of Wick RBLS Pipe Band, played two laments – Flowers of the Forest and the Skye Boat Song. The standard-bearer on behalf of the association was Jack Cormack of Wick RNLI.
Mr Coupland had begun the ceremony with a short address about the Battle of Kohima in 1944, regarded as the turning point of the Burma Campaign. He said: “This was hand-to-hand bayonet fighting.”
The Red Ensign – the Merchant Navy's official flag – was flown in the town and elsewhere.