Irish Ships and Shipping
The story of the "Kerlogue"
The 29th of December
2003 is
the
60th
anniversary of a rescue that has
gone
down
in
Irish Maritime History, for that was on that date
in 1943 that Wexford's little coaster Kerlogue” hauled
168 injured
and
shipwrecked German sailors from the icy waters of
the
He had barely gone asleep when the captain Tom Donohue, a Dungarvan man shouted
in the door "Get up boys, it's the Germans". All hands tumbled out of their
bunks as fast as they possibly could and ran up on deck to see a German warplane
approaching the ship. The swooped towards them but instead of strafing them with
cannon fire as was feared the plane
signalled them and dropped
flares away to the starboard bow of the coaster.
They could hear no gunfire but aware of the possibility that they were heading
into a war zone the captain changed course, northeast towards the flares. When
the coaster reached the area lit up by the flares they were astonished to find
the sea all around them covered by men, hundreds of them, clinging desperately
to life rafts in very rough seas.
Three days
earlier, a German flotilla of ten ships
including three destroyers sailed from
Commander Joachim
Quendenfeldt of the destroyer T26 order his men to open fire, despite knowing
that he and the other destroyers were out gunned and would not even reach the
British cruisers at that distance. Within minutes the battle was over. Both of
T26s engines were out and a shell had hit the bridge, meanwhile the other two
German destroyers had been sunk.
Quendenfeldt had no choice
but to abandon ship. Two boats were lowered, although one of them capsized, and
12 life rafts were thrown overboard. T26 then went down.
By now there were upwards of 500 men, burned, shot, or wounded by shellfire,
struggling to hold on to whatever was available. The remaining lifeboat picked
up as many wounded as she could carry. As darkness fell British planes flew over
and dropped life rafts and flares to aid the struggling sailors. (The cruisers
had sped away to avoid prowling U-boats.)
That was the sight
met by the "Kerlogue" when she arrived on the scene, except that by the time of
her arrival there were just about three hundred German sailors left in the
water. The "Kerlogue" crew immediately began to haul the sailors aboard. They
stood in the scuppers from mid-ships to aft and using grappling hooks and their
bare hands hauled them in.
There was still a heavy sea running and the "Kerlogue was rolling heavily As the
ship dipped they grabbed on to a body and hauled them in as she rose. It was
long backbreaking and heartbreaking work. Many of the men hauled aboard were
found to be dead and had to be slipped back into the sea to be replaced by
others. And that's how it went on, for ten hours!
The rescued were tended to by Capt. Donohue and Engineer Gary Roche and made as
comfortable as possible. They packed the German sailors in wherever they could.
Fourteen on the eleven-foot long bridge, giving helmsman Tom Grannell very
little space to manoeuvre his ship among the floating bodies. Fifty-seven in the
engine room, so many that the engineers were unable to move to tend the engines.
They had to make signs to some of the able bodied Germans, who then carried out
the procedures. All alleyways, stores etc. were filled to capacity.
Then, after ten hours Capt. Donohue had to call out "No More!"
The ship was packed tight; it was impossible to get
any more aboard her.
The "Kerlogue" turned away to the north, leaving
half of the men still in the water, facing certain death.
A head count later revealed that there were 168
German sailors onboard the "Kerlogue"!
The crew of the Wexford
ship were all totally soaked to the skin! All their spare clothes had been given
to the rescued and in a very short time all the ship's stores had been used up.
As luck would have it, she was carrying a cargo of oranges, Capt. Donohue
ordered that it be broken open and the crew made hot orange drinks for the
Germans.
This was all they had to sustain them until they arrived in
By now they were close to
And that was how Wexford's little "Kerlogue” and her crew wrote their own chapter in Irish Maritime History.
At the time rumours
sprang up that the Germans had attempted to take over the Kerlogue", they could
easily have done so with their superior manpower, but this was strongly denied
by Captain Donohue. It has also been said that thereafter whenever German
warplanes came across the "Kerlogue” on passage they swooped on her, dipped
their wings in thanks and flew off.The crew of the "Kerlogue" on that famous
occasion were, Captain, Tom Donohue, of Dungarvan, Chief Officer Denis Valencie,
of
She was re-named Munken and capsized off Lindesnes on 7/7/1960 - info from James O'Sullivan, grand nephew of Capt. Donohue
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Some of the Kerlogue crew before the rescue-G.Roche, J.Boyce, T.Grannell, T.O'Neill, J.Roche
Tom O'Neill is the
last surviving member of that crew and lives in Bemadette Place
in
©Maritime Matters Wexford press 2003