The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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260973 PO. John "Fred" Mason Merchant Navy SS Empress of Russia from:Southampton John Mason, commonly known to everyone as "Fred", ran away to sea at the age of 15. He served as a coal trimmer on the SS Araguaya. He served on The Mauretania and Almanzora during peace time. He became a fireman and greaser and worked his way up to becoming a Petty Officer on the Watson Ferris, Empress of Britain, Empress of Russia and Neverita during World War 2. A story that my father told me was that on the outbreak of the Second World War, my dad and his father were on their dairy cart on a delivery in Southampton when Fred told his son, "Nip (that was my dad's nickname), I've decided to go back to sea, I'm telling you first because you know how much your mother will nag me about it". Fred would rather face being torpedoed and sunk than facing his wife!! The Watson Ferris was sunk by a U-Boat, John was 7 days at sea. Empress of Britain was torpedoed on 28 October 1940 by U-32, 10 days at sea and eventually towed 200 miles towards Ireland by another U-Boat. Empress of Russia, served on the K17 Russian convoy. The ship blew up mysteriously in dry dock. MV Neverita, a tanker, thankfully the only ship he was on in WW2 that was never sunk. John sailed on the Mauretania during peacetime. Add to this record.  Related Content: Can you help us to add to our records? Add a record to our website. The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them Did you or your relatives live through the Second World War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial? Were you or your relative evacuated? Did an air raid affect your area? If so please let us know. Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice. Contact us. Celebrate your own Family History Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Secomd World War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc. Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.

The free section of the Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers. We have been helping people find out more about their relatives wartime experiences since 1999 by recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items. The website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions. If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running. Hosted by: The Wartime Memories Project Website is archived for preservation by the British Library Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV - All Rights Reserved We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.