Adolphus (Abraham) Bresler

Able Seaman, S.S. Anglo Saxon
Died 21 Aug 1940
Commemorated at Tower Hill Memorial
Age 45


Adolphus (Abraham) was born on 13 Oct 1897 in Lodz, Poland. It is not known when he travelled to England but records state that he served in the Merchant Navy in 1918. He had lodgings at the Jones home at 42 Elm Avenue in Grimsby and worked as a fisherman for twenty years before rejoining the Merchant Navy in 1937.

On 8 September 1939, after two years’ service onboard the steam tanker, his ship the Kennebec was stopped by U-boat U-34 with two shots across her bow about 70 miles west by south of the Scilly Isles. After the crew abandoned ship in lifeboats, the tanker was hit by again at 18.13 hours and broke in two. The 22 crew members were picked up by the Breedijk and landed at Milford Haven on 10 September. Abraham told reporters at the Citizen newspaper that the German U-boat commander joked with the crew whilst they were in the lifeboats. After the ship was hit, Abraham went back to rescue two canaries. ‘I was just going to get into the boat when I remembered them and dashed back down into the cabin. The other lads kept shouting and warning me not to be so foolish-but here we all are!’ He took the birds back home to his lodgings and gave them to Byron Jones the young son of his landlord.

Two weeks later, Abraham joined the crew on the S.S. Wellpark and the ship was attacked by a German plane in the North Sea, but the ship made it safely back to Grimsby.

Abraham’s next ship was the S.S. Anglo Saxon which left Newport Docks with a cargo of coal to travel to Argentina on 6 August 1940 with 41 officers and crew. A day later she called at Milford Haven, and on 8 August joined the outward-bound Liverpool Convoy OB 195. On 21 August 1940, 800 miles west of the Canary Islands at 20:20 hours, the German auxiliary cruiser Widder approached the Anglo Saxon in pitch darkness and opened fire from a range of approximately one mile. The first salvo of 5.9 in (150 mm) shells landed on Anglo Saxon’s poop and gun platform aft and ignited ammunition for the deck gun. This salvo killed most of the crew located in forecastle. As the Widder approached closer, she opened fire with flak, killing more of the crew, and holing the lifeboats the crew were attempting to launch on the starboard side of the ship. There were only 2 survivors who floated in a Jolly boat after 70 days at sea when they landed on the island of Elethera in the Bahamas. Widdicombe and Tapscott were transferred to a hospital in Nassau, Bahamas where they slowly recovered.

Wikipedia

1939 Register
Byron Jones with the rescued canaries.
Grimsby Evening Telegraph 16 Sep 1939