Abandoning Ship
The cry of "abandon ship", so often heard by sailors of the Merchant Navy and the RCN, is not an order that anyone wanted to hear in wartime.
Abandoning Ship
The cry of "abandon ship", so often heard by sailors of the Merchant Navy and the RCN, is not an order that anyone wanted to hear in wartime.
Abandoning Ship
The command to leave a sinking ship and trust providence for survival in the water or trade the relative comfort of a floating home for that of a lifeboat, was most often given by the ships' captain or the senior surviving officer on board.
In North Atlantic waters the life expectancy of a man in the sea was measured in minutes, and even in warmer climes survival depended on rescue before one died of thirst, starvation or exposure to the elements. Despite these experiences, even after surviving the sinking of their ship, many merchant seamen and Navy sailors returned to the sea afterwards to continue serving in the war effort during the Battle of the Atlantic.