Peter Ewing Fyfe

He died on or around February 17, 1941, when the S.S. Gairsoppa, the ship he was serving on as Chief Engineer, was attacked and sunk. He was 49 years old. The S.S. Gairsoppa was a steel-hulled British cargo steamship owned by the British India Steam Navigation Company of London. During the national emergency that was WWII the ships owned by this company became a temporary part of the British Naval fleet. In December 1940 the Gairsoppa was in India loading up with pig iron, tea, and silver to deliver home to Britain. She then sailed for Freetown, Sierra Leone, where she met up with a convoy of ships which were to travel together to Liverpool (convoy SL-64). They left on January 31, making slow progress as many of the ships were in poor repair. As they went along they were fighting high wind and waves, and the Gairsoppa broke away from the protective convoy on February 14 as she was burdened by her heavy cargo, running out of coal, and could not keep up. She was now heading for Galway, Ireland, but before she could arrive, she was intercepted by a German U-boat captained by Captain Ernst Mengersen, a decorated German naval officer who would sink twelve ships over the course of the war. At around 10:30 p.m. the Germans fired a torpedo which hit its mark. The Gairsoppa was unable to send a distress call as the wireless antenna had been destroyed by the falling foremast.

Three lifeboats were apparently launched from the Gairsoppa while Germans from the U. Boat were firing machine-guns at the fleeing sailors. Two of the boats were never seen again. The men in the third boat were in for quite an ordeal. This is what the website BI Ship has to say:

"According to Valiant Voyaging, two and perhaps three boats were got away in heavy swell and under machine gun fire from the submarine. One boat, in command of the Second Officer Richard Hamilton Ayres, set out with 31 men, eight of them European and 23 Indian. Only Ayres had any skill with boats. It was a dark night and heavy seas were running so they lay-to a sea anchor until dawn when another, waterlogged, boat was found with two Indian seamen on board, who were taken on.

They set sail and steered east under a reefed sail. Much of the fresh water had been lost during launching and there was only enough for two dippers per person a day. After the second day it was found impossible to swallow the boat's biscuits due to dryness of mouth and throat. The Indian seamen occupied the for'ard and midships parts where the canvas boat cover provided some protection from spray. They were issued with blankets, the Europeans giving up theirs help the Indian men withstand the cold.

Deaths occurred from frostbite from the fourth day on, and there were other deaths from men drinking seawater. By the eighth day the water was all used and the hands and feet of the remaining seven men were badly frostbitten. Thirteen days after abandoning ship, the Lizard was sighted but by then only three European and four Indian seamen were alive. Seriously weakened, the men endeavoured to bring the boat to the shore but the wind was blowing directly on shore and was too strong. The boat broached and capsized throwing all the men into the sea, drowning the four Indian seamen. The boat was righted and three Europeans got back on board, only for the boat to capsize again. One of the men swam for the rocks but was washed off and another was unable to maintain a grip on the upturned boat. One survivor - Richard Ayres - was rescued unconscious from the surf by lifeboatmen who had been summoned by children who chanced up the scene as the men were desperately trying to make the beach. The fate of any who made it into the other lifeboats was never known." The full title of the Valiant Voyaging which is referred to in the first line is Valiant Voyaging: A Short History of the British India Steam Navigation Company in the Second World War 1939-1945 by Hilary St. George Sanders (now out of print).

I have not been able to discover if Peter was one of the Europeans on the lifeboat which reached Britain, or if he was on one of the two lifeboats which immediately disappeared. My father-in-law says that he died of exposure, which would suggest that he may have been one of the eight Europeans on the boat with Richard Ayres, but I can't confirm this.

Several of the men who lost their lives on the S.S. Gairsoppa, including Peter Ewing Fyfe, are commemorated on the Tower Memorial in Trinity Square Gardens, London. Peter's name is on panel 51. The inscription on the memorial reads:

"THE TWENTY-FOUR THOUSAND OF THE MERCHANT NAVY AND FISHING FLEETS WHOSE NAMES ARE HONOURED ON THE WALLS OF THIS GARDEN GAVE THEIR LIVES FOR THEIR COUNTRY AND HAVE NO GRAVE BUT THE SEA."

Partly because of its treasure trove, the Gairsoppa was never completely forgotten, and in July of 2011 a company called Odyssey Marine Exploration was given permission by the British government to recover the cargo. Within 24 days they found it, and in the past two years Odyssey Marine has painstakingly recovered over 109 tons of silver. This is the deepest and largest precious metal underwater recovery in world history.

"This was an extremely complex recovery which was complicated by the sheer size and structure of the SS Gairsoppa as well as its depth nearly three miles below the surface of the North Atlantic," commented Greg Stemm, Odyssey’s chief executive officer. "To add to the complications, the remaining insured silver was stored in a small compartment that was very difficult to access."

Here is an email I received from a relative of one of Peter's close friends.

On Friday, April 1, 2016 9:32 AM, Anne Wilson <annewilson08@optusnet.com.au> wrote:

Dear Claire,

I am thrilled to have traced you. I will, in a separate email, tell you that story. I feel rather chuffed that my persistence in trying to find a descendant of Peter Fyfe, bore fruit. For now I will get on with the main story.

Here it is. My father, Norman Carey (a Geordie) was on the 'Gairsoppa' from 24.4.1937 to 20.8.1940. Peter Fyfe was the Chief Engineer. My father was the Second Engineer, and 10 years his Junior. He always referred to Peter as "The Chief" when he spoke of him. Even decades later. When anyone would enquire as to who the 2 men were in the wedding photograph, he would point to Peter, say his name then always followed it with "he went down when the 'Gairsoppa' went down, all hands aboard, not long after this photograph was taken". He would then quietly walk away. I always felt he felt a sense of guilt that Peter died and he survived.

Again, when he left the next ship he joined after the 'Gairsoppa', the 'Gandara', it too was sunk, this time by a Japanese ship. This second 'escape from death', I think, exacerbated his sense of guilt.

Don't get me wrong, he did not dwell on it, but when Peter Fyfe's name came up, it would trigger 'something' in his psyche. Perhaps it was because Peter and Dad were very close friends. So, it was inevitable Peter would have been his Best Man. Mum and Dad did not have sufficient time to arrange a Church Wedding because of his war commitments, so they married at The Registry. However, they did not skimp on the celebration after. It was a Pink Champagne affair, quite something for War Time.😀

It was the kind of friendship that was nurtured during wartime and when friendships were precious and valued. When those actively involved with the horrors of war lived from one day to the next, not knowing what the next moment had in store.

Before the Japanese became involved with the war in the Pacific and their was trouble on the horizon with the Chinese, many BI ships were seconded to serve in a reconnaissance capacity, under the guise of cargo ships, cruising the waters of the Pacific. That was what Peter and my Dad were involved with. My Dad never talked about his war service to us, his 3 children, but he did tell his stories to my husband, a World War II history buff.

Then, after the bombing of Pearl Harbour (Peter had died by this stage) and the War in the Pacific gained momentum, the ships my father was on between 1941 and 1945 would sail up the Rangoon River to deliver high octane fuel to the pilots of the RAF Spitfires, fighting the Japanese Zeros during the Burma Campaign. They were reconnaissance missions. They also evacuated Europeans from Rangoon to India as the Japanese encroached into Burma. So much was the impact of The Burma campaign on my father that my older sister's middle name is 'Burma'. She was born in August 1941.

My father met my mother in Calcutta, where she lived. The Chief Engineer of the ship my father was on when he was a very junior engineer, invited him home for a meal. The rest is history. My Dad was 13 years older than my mother. He absolutely adored her, till the day he died in 1980.

My mother was born in India and her British roots go back to her Great Grandfather an Englishman and the British Army in 1853 on her mother's side and Irish Grandfather on her father's side.

Dad left the 'Gairsoppa' on the 20th August 1940 and got married on the 28th September, 1940. After The wedding, Peter continued on his way on the 'Gairsoppa'. After 3 months leave Dad joined the 'Gandara' on the 10th December 1940, (the 'Gairsoppa' was sunk on the 5th February 1941). He left the "Gandara" on the 4th March 1942 and it was sunk by a torpedo from a Japanese submarine on the 5th April 1942, yet again avoiding death.

When Dad retired from the BI in 1956, he was the 3rd most senior Chief Engineer in the company. In those days they retired at 55 years old. We emigrated to Australia in 1956. We had been here 3 times on holidays before Dad retired and he had decided this was where he would make his home instead of the U.K. or Canada. So here we stayed.

Claire I will send, under cover of another email the photographs. Hope these few lines helps to fill in those gaps in your Family's history, albeit a photograph and a few words of recollections of a 'once upon a time' very curious listener and onlooker. More importantly for Peter's nephews and great nephew, a man they never knew, but a man my father always called 'a gentleman and jolly fine human being'. When you get to my age you realise how important it is that 'story telling' is an invaluable way of passing on our heritage and so it has been since time began. As well, you wished you had asked the old folk more questions.

I will write some more in a couple of days.

Warmest regards, Anne W.