On Plymouth Naval Memorial is the name of 673205 Fireman Joseph Bays, serving on H.M.S. Viknor with the Mercantile Marine Reserve, who died 13/01/1915.

The son of Harriet Bays and the late Joseph Bays and the husband of Thomasina Newton (formerly Bays), of 21, Commercial Road, South Shields.

Joseph was one of the crew members of the HMS Viknor, part of the (10th Cruiser) Squadron, which sunk with all of its crew on the 13th January 1915 by a mine which had been laid by the vessel Berlin.

His body was never recovered or identified like many of his fellow crew members.

Also on board the Viknor were eight Germans who had been taken prisoner when SS Bergensfjord was captured on January 11th 1915. These included Graf Hans Adam Wedell and Dr. Rasmus Bjornstad. Wedell was a high level German spy traveling from New York to Germany. It is unclear who Bjornstad was or if this was even his real name. The other (unnamed) six Germans were stowaways and suspected to be traveling to Germany to join the war effort.

Source: Maritime Quest with thanks.

In 2006 the survey ship Celtic Explorer located the wreck of HMS Viknor, according to Dr Ian Lawler, the wreck is located on the outer edge of a minefield laid by SMS Berlin which lends some credibility to the theory that she could have hit a mine, but at this time there is still no definitive answer as to the cause of the loss.

Joseph Bays is remembered at South Shields on S86.039 and S86.129 and in our List of Ships’ Crews.