Photo : New South Wales Library

The website "London Remembers" has a William Fawcett, Cabin Boy, serving in the Merchant Navy, who parents were William and Edith F. Fawcett from Ashington.

Colin Boyd has supplied the following:

William Fawcett was born on the 4th February 1925. His address was given as 161 Pont Street, Ashington. His next of kin was his mother, Edith Maude Cochrane, of 86 Milburn Road, Ashington, which suggests that she had remarried and moved to a new address.

William was serving on board the M.V. Cordelia and was presumed drowned when the vessel went missing on the 3rd February 1943, aged 18. But the dates suggest that he died on the day before his 18th birthday.

M.V. Cordelia was at 21.54 hours on the 3rd February 1943, the unescorted Cordelia (Master Edward Marshall), a straggler from convoy HX-224, was torpedoed and sunk by U Boat U-632, commanded by Korvettenkapitän Hans Karpf, south of Iceland. The master, 37 crew members and eight gunners were lost. The sole survivor, chief engineer I.C. Bingham, was taken prisoner by the U-boat and carelessly mentioned convoy SC-118 which was reported to the BdU. The convoy was subsequently attacked with the loss of nine ships. The survivor landed at Brest on the 14th February and was taken to the German POW camp Milag Nord.

Cordelia Type: Motor tanker, Tonnage: 8,190 tons; Completed1932 - Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson Ltd, Wallsend, Sunderland.
Owner C.T. Bowring & Co Ltd, London, Homeport,Liverpool. Was carrying 12,000 tons of Admiralty fuel oil.

William Fawcett is remembered in Ashington on A17.01 (A11.27) and A17.43

U Boat Net
London Remembers
The CWGC entry for Cabin Boy William Fawcett