The Tower Hill memorial in London commemorates the men from the Merchant Navy and Fishing Fleets who have no known grave and died during the two world wars. The memorial can be found close to the Tower of London on the south side of Trinity Square. The men who died during the WW1 are listed in the covered, vaulted corridor. The men who died during WW2 are listed on bronze panels in a sunken garden. All names are arranged in alphabetical order under the names of the ships that they were lost on.
It contains the names of those members of the Merchant Navy and Fishing Fleets who lost their lives in WW2 through war service in ships registered in the United Kingdom or on charter to the United Kingdom Government. This Roll of Honour is in three Volumes. Volumes I and II contain the names of those who are commemorated on the Tower Hill Memorial and details the number of the panel on which they are listed, as well as Name, Rank, Ship, Date of death, Age and brief family details, where known.
There are copies in St. It will also be available to other interested parties by appointment. This Roll of Honour records the names of more than 33, merchant seamen and fishermen who lost their lives while serving in British merchant ships or fishing vessels or in foreign ships chartered by the Government of the United Kingdom in the world war of This bare statement of fact conceals an epic of sustained heroism unsurpassed in the annals of war. At no time were there more than , officers and ratings serving in these ships: yet the dead numbered over 33, In no other field of war did so high a proportion of those engaged lose their lives.
This is the measure of a sacrifice which has laid our country and the whole British Commonwealth and its allies in their debt for ever. They were civilians without the support of military discipline and training, yet they faced mortal danger in the service of others, and they did not waver. Never, even in the darkest days, was there any lack of willing hands to man the ships however hazardous the voyage, though the seamen knew, often from bitter experience, the horrors which followed enemy attack at sea.
They took the troops to the scene of battle and sustained them while they fought. They carried the food without which whole populations would have perished and the supplies without which the needs of the fighting forces and the civilian economy which nourished them could not have been met. They made victory possible. The Memorials which record their sacrifice and the headstones that mark their resting places are scattered throughout the world, some at home, some far overseas.
