On Liverpool Naval Memorial is the name of Junior Engineer Ninian Lyle McFarlane, serving on H.M.S. Registan with the Naval Auxiliary Personnel (Merchant Navy) who died 28/05/1941.

The son of Robert Oley McFarlane and Margaret Ellen McFarlane, of Southwick, Sunderland, Co. Durham.

Completed in March 1930 as steam merchant Registan (5886 grt) for F.C. Strick & Co Ltd, London. On the 13th September 1940, was requisitioned by the Royal Navy and converted to the ocean boarding vessel (OBV) HMS Registan (F 106). On the 27th May 1941 the vessel was bombed by German aircraft off Cape Cornwall, caught fire and 63 crew members were lost. The survivors were rescued by HMS Wivern (D 66), HMS Vansittart (D 64) and HMS Wild Swan (D 62) and landed at Milford Haven. The badly damaged ship was towed to Falmouth by the rescue tug HMS Goliath (W 121), where she was rebuilt to a merchant and was returned to the owner in November 1941.

At 0112 hours on the 29th September 1942 the unescorted Registan (Master Charles Spencer Bartlett) was torpedoed and sunk by U Boat U-332, commanded by Kapitnleutnant Johannes Liebe, about 140 miles east of Barbados. Eleven crew members and five gunners were lost. The master, 34 crew members and three gunners were picked up on 30 September by the Argentinian merchant Rio Neuquen and landed at Pernambuco on the 11th October.

Ninian Lyle McFarlane is remembered at Southwick on S130.22, at Sunderland in S140.159 and in our List of Ships’ Crews.