There is a comment about the lack of Welsh seamen's names on War Memorials.
Some years ago I went to a conference on Lewis about the Highlands and
Islands contribution to the military. One speaker was a councillor from
Barra and said he was once at a council meeting at the beginning of November
and a colleague said something about going to the Remembrance Ceremony at
the local War Memorial the following weekend. He got thinking on the plane
home and realised that there was not a War Memorial on Barra.
He asked around and was told that majority of people from Barra were in the
Merchant Navy or RNR during WWI. He was told that after WWI, the CWGC were
very strict about who they classed as a war casualty. A Merchant Navy
seaman killed by direct enemy action was a war casualty and would get a CWGC
headstone if the body was found but if he died of exposure in a lifeboat
then he would not get a CWGC headstone. There was a lot of bad feeling
about this on the island, I presume the names for the War Memorial would
have come from the CWGC lists so local people said they did not want one.
They now have a shiny new War Memorial, I think the same might have happened
in other parts of the Western Isles because there are quite few new War
memorials.
By the way, the picture of the new CWGC headstone. I took some picture for
someone locally of a headstone that had been erected for an ancestor of
their theirs. I thought it might have been a temporary one but I was told
that they are using "Gallipoli" headstone which are low ones just slightly
raised from the ground. They are presumably cheaper but also less
susceptible to vandalism.
Also the coroner's record of someone "murdered by the German government".
There is a headstone near Oban which is even stronger.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/doffcocker/albums/72157638249824513
IN
SACRED AND LOVING MEMORY
OF
NEIL McDougall MORTON
OF SUNDERLAND
AGED 27 YEARS
CHIEF Officer OF BELGIAN PRINCE
TORPEDOED AND CRUELLY
MURDERED BY THE HUNS
ON 31 JULY 1917
(BODY WASHED ASHORE AT CUAN FERRY
ON 23RD SEPT)
HE GAVE HIS LIFE THAT
WE MIGHT NOT STARVE
ERECTED
BY HIS MOTHER
Most of the crew of the ship were deliberately murdered by the Germans, I
think three survived.
Martin Briscoe
Fort William