Wartime honour at last
Jan 3 2009 by Paul James, The Journal
A WARTIME engineer who died after his ship was bombed in the Second World War is to receive a posthumous medal more than 67 years after his death.
Herbert Clark, from South Shields, died of a heart attack two months after his ship was bombed by the Germans in 1941.
Despite the ship’s captain agreeing that the bombing was the probable cause of death, Mr Clark was never recognised for his war work.
But after a three-year battle by his nephew, Mr Clark is to be commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, and receive a posthumous Atlantic Star medal.
Three years ago Ray Buck began a quest to find out more about the uncle he never knew.
Mr Buck, 65, born two years after his uncle died, said “It was a totally different time then. No one really talked about how he’d died.”
With only the name of his aunt – Herbert’s wife – and her home town of South Shields – Mr Buck managed to trace her grave to the town’s Harton Cemetery. And there he saw the resting place of his uncle, undistinguished but for a small headstone, engraved with a message from the personnel of the SS San Roberto. Mr Buck said: “Without that engraving I’d have been at a dead end but because it was there we knew the ship he sailed on, and it opened up whole new avenues.”
He discovered that his Uncle Herbert was on board the SS San Roberto – part of the Eagle Oil and Shipping Company fleet used to carry oil up and down the coast of England and Scotland in the Second World War – when it was hit in a German bombing raid.
The blast blew Mr Clark into the engine room bilges, and just two months later he died on board ship from a heart attack at the age of 41, despite not previously suffering medical problems.
Official documents showed that the ship’s captain Cyril Alison, as well as others on the ship, agreed that the bombing was the probable cause of his death.
But war chiefs dismissed the link and Mr Clark’s death was not officially recognised as related to battle.
Unlike his fallen colleagues, he was never given a medal.
Mr Buck said: “It was clear from the records that his death was linked to the original bombing, yet it had never been given official recognition.”
Neil Staples, superintendent at the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, said: “There is a case for putting forward that the probable cause of Herbert Clark’s demise was the injuries he sustained during direct enemy action on the 9/10 May, 1941.
“In those circumstances my decision is that Mr Herbert Clark now be commemorated by Commonwealth War Graves Commission.”
