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Create new listA posthumous King’s Commendation group of three awarded to Captain T. Prince, Merchant Navy, who lost his life when his command, the S.S. “Otterpol”, was torpedoed off the Scilly Islands in June 1940: he had earlier survived the loss of the S.S. “Firby” - and a close encounter with a U-Boat commander
1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; War Medal 1939-45, M.I.D. oak leaf, together with original King’s Commendation certificate, extremely fine (3)
£400-450
King’s Commendation (posthumous) London Gazette 26 July 1940.
Thomas Prince, who was born at Sheffield in July 1902, served as an apprentice in the Mercantile Marine in the Great War. Passing his examinations for 2nd Mate in July 1922 and for 1st Mate in October 1927, he was appointed a Master in May 1931. The renewal of hostilities found him in command of the S.S. Firby, and, on 11 September 1939, north of Rockall, she was brought to a standstill by the accurate gunnery of a U-Boat, and afterwards sunk by torpedo. Prince stated in his official report on her loss:
‘The submarine was sighted a§bout half a point on the port quarter and he opened fire immediately about half a mile away. I gave the pre-arranged signal of two double rings on the telegraph to indicate to the engine room to go full out. I zig-zagged all the time but each shell, including the first shell, hit us. I carried on zig-zagging until I thought we had gone far enough. She fired six shots. After about the fifth shot, I stopped and ordered the men to take to the boats. Every shot fired hit the ship - he put one through the fireman’s bathroom, one through No. 2 hold, one through my room, one through the funnel and the other the the after-deck. We were in two boats, the port boat being slightly damaged, and I was in the starboard boat ...’
Prince next refers to his extraordinary encounter with the U-Boat’s captain:
‘The submarine hailed my boat alongside. He asked for the Captain of the ship and then ordered me to come on board and bring my papers. They wanted any secret documents or papers that I had. I told him that I had none because I had already destroyed them ... He then asked me to have a drink with him, so we both had a tumbler full of whisky. He told me he would send an S.O.S. out and wished me the best of luck and hoped we would meet again after the war. He gave me four rolls of bandages and six loaves of bread for the wounded. He called the boat back alongside. He let me go and gave me a course to steer. We went off in the lifeboats, I called the other lifeboats alongside and, after I left the submarine, he torpedoed the ship and he remained on the surface until the ship was sunk ... The other lifeboat foundered so I had to take the crew from that lifeboat into mine. We laid to sea-anchor till about 2.45 or 3 in the morning, when H.M.S. Fearless picked us up ...’
In closing his report Prince stated that he had clearly seen the U-Boat’s number ‘48’ on the conning-tower, and that when he last saw her commander, he was standing ‘with his hand to his forehead in salute’. He did, however, observe that the whisky tasted ‘more like sulphuric acid than our own brew’, and that the U-Boat’s second officer ‘behaved in a very hostile and unpleasant fashion ... as though he would like to behave in a very different manner from the Commander.’
As it transpired, Prince was right about the identity of the U-Boat, for it was indeed the U-48 that sunk the Firby. And her seemingly affable commander was Herbert Schultze, who was awarded the Knight’s Cross in March 1940 (and oak leaves in June 1941). He survived the War.
Sadly, however, Prince was not so fortunate, for he was lost in his very next command, the S.S. Otterpool, when she was torpedoed and sunk by the U-30 80 miles S. of the Scilly Islands on 20 June 1940 - on being struck by a second torpedo, she went down very quickly, taking with her 22 of her crew and one gunner.
Prince, whose British War and Mercantile Marine Medals were most probably lost in the Firby, is commemorated on the Tower Hill Memorial.
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