Photo: Geordie at War Project

Photo : San Demetrio Imperial War Museum

In Gateshead (Saltwell) Cemetery is a family headstone which has an addition which reads:

Also the above Frances A.
died Dec. 2nd 1948
George Howard Emmerson
killed in action March 17th 1942
Wm Basil Weddle, R.N.
Killed in action April 18th 1941
"We will remember"
Also George father of the above Howard
who died Feb. 20th 1953, aged 79 years.

King's Commendation for Brave Conduct. Son of George and Margaret Emmerson, husband of Evelyn Emmerson, of Whitley Bay, Northumberland. Master Mariner, Merchant Navy.

MV San Demetrio was a British motor tanker, notable for her service during the Second World War. She was built in 1938 for the Eagle Oil and Shipping Company. In 1940 she was damaged by enemy action in mid-Atlantic, abandoned by her crew but later re-boarded and successfully brought into harbour. She was the subject of a 1943 feature film, San Demetrio London, one of the few films that recognised the heroism of the UK Merchant Navy crews during the War.

San Demetrio was one of several motor tankers of about 8,000 GRT built for Eagle Oil and Shipping in the latter 1930s. She was built by the Blythswood Shipbuilding Company of Glasgow, who had also launched her sister ships San Conrado in 1936 and San Cipriano in 1937.

San Demetrio had loaded 11,200 tons of aviation fuel in Galveston, Texas and was bound for Avonmouth, England. She was one of 38 ships that joined Convoy HX-84 for the passage across the north Atlantic and left Halifax, Nova Scotia on the 28th October 1940. The Wickes-class destroyer HMCS Columbia (149) and Clemson-class destroyer HMCS St. Francis (I93) escorted the convoy out of Canadian home waters but once clear of the coast, the convoy's sole escort was the armed merchant cruiser HMS Jervis Bay — a converted passenger liner that had been armed with seven outdated BL 6 inch Mk VII naval guns and a pair of 3-inch (76 mm) anti-aircraft guns.

Attack by the Admiral Scheer.

On the 5th November 1940, the German cruiser Admiral Scheer found the convoy at 50°30′N 32°00′W and attacked immediately. Captain E.S.F. Fegen of HMS Jervis Bay steamed out towards the raider so as to delay the Admiral Scheer to allow the convoy to scatter and escape. Jervis Bay was completely outclassed, but she fought for 22 minutes, before she was sunk with the loss of 190 of her crew. Their sacrifice, followed by a four-hour cat-and-mouse battle with the convoy freighter SS Beaverford enabled most of the merchantmen from Convoy HX-84 to escape. Fegen received a posthumous Victoria Cross.

Admiral Scheer now tried to sink as many of the convoy as possible before darkness fell. She hit San Demetrio with several shells that destroyed the bridge and poop deck and left the upper deck in flames. Despite both the exploding shells and the resultant fire, the ship's highly flammable cargo did not explode. Nevertheless, her Master, Captain Waite, believed that the fire could set off the aviation fuel at any moment so he gave the order to abandon ship. With the ship remaining under fire from the Scheer, the crew escaped in two lifeboats. Admiral Scheer then turned her attention to other ships of the rapidly scattering convoy.

Re-boarding

The two lifeboats separated in the night, and the lifeboat with the captain and twenty-five crew was picked up and taken to Newfoundland. The sixteen men in the other lifeboat, including Second Officer Arthur G. Hawkins and Chief Engineer Charles Pollard, drifted for 24 hours when they sighted a burning ship. To their surprise, they discovered that it was their own ship, San Demetrio. With few alternatives, the crew had to decide whether to risk death by exposure or to re-board and risk the fire. In the end they chose to remain in the lifeboat because the fire was too great and the weather too hazardous to attempt boarding, but after a second night in the boat and enduring a freezing North Atlantic winter gale, they regretted not re-boarding the tanker.

At dawn the following day, 7th November 1940, the San Demetrio was about 5 nautical miles (9 km) downwind so the crew set sail toward her and re-boarded. They fought the fire, repaired the port auxiliary boiler sufficiently to restart the ship's pumps and dynamos and repaired the auxiliary steering gear. No charts or navigational instruments had survived so the crew estimated a course from occasional glimpses of the sun. Her radio had not survived either. They managed to sail the tanker across the rest of the Atlantic, braving bad weather and U-boats. After seven days the San Demetrio reached waters off Ireland, from where they were escorted on to the mouth of the River Clyde, docking on the 16th November 1940. They declined the offer of a tow from a tug because of the high cost.

Despite the damage and fire, only 200 tons of San Demetrio's highly volatile cargo had been lost. There was only one fatality, John Boyle, who had been injured jumping into the lifeboat after the original battle and gradually began to feel unwell. He was propped up in the engine room, to watch the gauges, but died of a haemorrhage after two days. He was posthumously awarded the King's Commendation for Brave Conduct.

Since the crew had received no assistance from another vessel, in the ensuing case in the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court, they were able to claim the salvage money from the insurers for the ship and cargo. The oil and freight cargo were valued at £60,000. The ship herself, almost new, was worth £250,000. The High Court awarded the claimants £14,700 salvage money: £2,000 of it going to Second Officer Hawkins; £1,000 to the estate of John Boyle. Another £1,000 went to 26-year-old Oswald Ross Preston, an American seaman, because he played a "magnificent" part when the battle started. Hawkins was also given the tattered Red Ensign of the ship.

Second Officer Hawkins was awarded the OBE for his gallantry. Chief Engineer Charles Pollard and Deck Apprentice John Lewis Jones each received the Lloyd's War Medal for Bravery at Sea. San Demetrio was repaired and returned to service.

On the 14th March 1942, San Demetrio sailed unescorted from Baltimore, Maryland bound for the UK via Halifax, Nova Scotia with a cargo of 4,000 tons of alcohol and 7,000 tons of aviation spirit. On the 17th March she was northwest of Cape Charles, Virginia when the German U-Boat U-404 commanded by Korvettenkapitän Otto von Bülow, at 02.16 hours, torpedoed and sank her.

16 crew and three DEMS gunners were lost, and six crew wounded, but the survivors managed to launch two lifeboats. (The U-boat inspected the lifeboats but did not communicate with the survivors and soon submerged again). Two days later the US tanker SS Beta rescued the Master, 26 crew and five DEMS gunners and took them to Norfolk, Virginia. The Master, Conrad Vidot, was awarded the Lloyd's War Medal.

George Howard Emmerson is remembered at Gateshead on G39.015 and on our List of Ships’ crews

6th November 1940
Film of the San Demetrio
M.V. San Demetrio
The CWGC entry for 2nd Officer Emmerson