Painting by Kenneth King from the National Maritime Museum |
|
| Career (Ireland) | |
|---|---|
| Name: | ST Leukos |
| Owner: |
1915: National Steam Fishing Co., Aberdeen. |
| Port of registry: | Dublin, Ireland |
| Builder: | John Duthie Torry Shipbuilding Co. Ltd |
| Yard number: | 405 |
| Fate: | sunk by gunfire from U-38 |
| Notes: |
Jun 1915: Requisitioned by the Admiralty and converted to a boom defence vessel. 1919: Returned to owners. 10 Mar 1940: Lost by unknown cause NW of Tory Island. |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Steel side trawler |
| Tonnage: | 216 grt 83 net |
| Length: | 166 feet |
| Beam: | 21 feet |
| Depth: | 11 feet |
| Installed power: | Coal fired, Steam. T.3-Cyl., 55 rhp.; by Charles D. Holmes, Hull. |
| Propulsion: | single screw |
| Sail plan: | Ketch rigged |
| Crew: | 11 |
The ST Leukos was Irish Steam Trawler that operated off the coast of Ireland. She was lost with all hands on March 9, 1940 while fishing off Tory Island when the German submarine U-38 surfaced and opened fire with its deck gun. The Leukos and her crew of 11 were lost. As a neutral country, Irish ships, including the Leukos, were unarmed and clearly marked.
The Leukos was fishing in the company of British trawlers and she may have positioned herself between these fleeing trawlers and the U-boat in the vain belief that her status as a neutral would be respected. Alternatively the Leukos might have attempted to ram the U-38.
The Irish Seamen's Relatives Association holds that the Leukos did attempt to ram the U-38 as it threatened the British trawlers. They maintain that this selfless bravery should be acknowledged by the British government.[1]
This loss remained a mystery for many years. Death certificates for the lost crew were not issued until 1986.
Contents |
ST Leukos was built in Aberdeen in 1914 by the John Duthie Torry Shipbuilding Co. Ltd. for the National Steam Fishing Company of Aberdeen. She was powered by a coal-fired steam engine. During World War I she was requisitioned by the British Admiralty and used as a “boom defence vessel”; that is: she maintained the buoys, hawsers and netting of a boom defence.
Initially she fished from Aberdeen. In 1920 she was sold to Tucker, Tippet and Company and continued fishing out of Aberdeen. On 27 February 1927 she was in a collision with ST Thomas Bartlett. Later that year she was sold to the Dublin Trawlers, Ice and Cold Storage Company with offices at 8 Cardiff Lane, Dublin. She was transferred to the Irish registry. She was based at Hanover Quay, Ringsend, Dublin
On 9 February 1940 the Leukos sailed from Hanover Quay under Captain James Potter Thomasson, from Fleetwood, Lancashire. She called to Troon, Scotland for coaling and then headed for ‘the bank’, a fishing ground, north-west of Tory Island. She was scheduled to return to Dublin on 12 March 1940, but failed to return. On 21 March her empty lifeboat was found off Scarinish on the Island of Tiree in the Scottish Inner Hebrides. On 26 March, Lloyd's of London declared the Leukos and her crew were presumed lost.
This loss remained a mystery until 1986. There were theories: was she on a target list because of her previous role as a boom defence vessel; or was there a structural weakness caused by her collision with ST Thomas Bartlett? The general assumption was that she struck a mine. Officially she was listed as ‘missing’. Further details were uncovered by Peter Mulvany, grand-nephew of Patricio McCarthy, one of those lost. They were published in the Spring 1987 edition of the Journal of the Maritime Institute of Ireland. His sources were former U-boat personnel and recently declassified intelligence resulting from decryption of encrypted German radio communications, known as ‘Ultra’.
On 11 September 1939, U-38, on its first patrol, shelled and sunk the Irish-flagged oil tanker Inverliffey [2] carrying 13,000 tons of gasolene. The blazing oil threatened to engulf the Inverliffey’s lifeboats. At some risk to the U-38, it towed the lifeboats away from the flames.[3] They were later rescued by the American oil-tanker R.G. Stewart, which transferred them to the American freighter SS City of Joliet and landed at Antwerp, Belgium.[4] William Trowsdale, master of the Inverliffey, had protested to the Kapitänleutnant Heinrich Liebe of the U-38 that he had attacked a neutral Irish ship.[5] Éamon de Valera permitted Inver Tankers, the owners of the Inverliffey, to transfer their seven tankers to the British registry at the outbreak of the war,[6] therefore their continued flying of the Irish tricolour was questionable.[7]
The account of the sinking of the Leukos, as recorded in the U-38 war diary,[8] is curious. At 20:00 he surfaced
“After surfacing 6 steamers with lights on were sighted which apparently formed a guard line with north-south course. I decided to give one of them a lesson with our gun.”
He remained, surfaced, for over an hour. At 21:13
“fired one shot on one trawler at 200m distance. Hit engine room, steamer disappeared in smoke and dust.”
He wrote that the Leukos had not sunk!
“Later it was recognised that the steamer had not sunk as presumed before. Decided not to attack again”.
He also wrote that some other trawlers were unaware of the incident
“others seemed not to have noticed the gunfire.”
It is not known why the U-38 sank a neutral Irish trawler, leaving the five British trawlers unmolested. Nor is it known why he waited an hour. In 1988 an effort was made to ask Kapitän Liebe. He declined to speak. He died in July 1997.[9]
On its fifth patrol the U-38 landed Walter Simon, alias “Karl Anderson”, a Nazi agent, at Dingle Bay in Ireland on the night of 12 June. Simon was an experienced spy. He had several successful trips to England. Not noticing grass overgrown on the rusting rail-tracks of the Tralee and Dingle Light Railway which had closed 14 months earlier, he asked “when is the next train?” He was later arrested.[10]
The other trawlers were:
Alvis and Pelagos were armed Trawlers each having a 3-pounder gun mounted aft. Seddock might have also been armed.