Abraham Abrahams

Assistant Steward, S.S. Arandora Star
Died 2 Jul 1940
Commemorated on Tower Hill Memorial
Age 25


Abraham was born on 28 July 1914 in Liverpool to Max and Elizabeth Abrahams. He first enlisted into the Merchant Navy on 17 June 1939 and served on the Reina del Pacifico ship before transferring to the S.S. Arandora Star on 29 June 1940.

The S.S. Arandora Star was a modified passenger liner which left Liverpool on 2 July 1940 with more than 400 German and 700 Italian internees and 86 German prisoners of war, guarded by 200 troops. Some of the internees, all of whom were civilians, had previously been held in the internment camp at Huyton, near Liverpool. Their deportation to Canadian internment camps was ordered by the British Government due to heightened invasion fears following the fall of France and the evacuation of the British army from Dunkirk. At 6.45 am on 3 July the 15,500-ton Arandora Star was torpedoed by the U47 about 75 miles west of County Donegal on the north west coast of Ireland and sank within an hour. It is believed that the U- boat crew mistook her grey wartime livery for that of an armed merchant ship. There were more than 1,600 people on board of which over half were killed. The shortage of lifeboats, the lack of boat drills and the use of barbed wire around the boat deck all contributed to the terrible death toll. Read more at: https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?208317

Tower Hill Memorial