# DEMS and others....



## Barbaraf (Jun 13, 2014)

I have my late father's RN record here. I am trying to add more details...ships, their movements, etc.
Anyone know anything about
SS Prometheus? ( served in 1943)
SS Auristan? ( served1943/44)
SS Trump?


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## Hugh MacLean (Nov 18, 2005)

Hello Barbara,

I think AURISTAN should read AVRISTAN (Strick Line) official number 168304 built in 1942, survivied the war, 1963 sold to Liberia renamed Paulia, 1966 renamed Victoria Loyal, 1967 renamed Grand Loyal, 1970 scrapped.

PROMEHEUS (Blue Funnel Line) official number 147335 built in 1925, survived the war, 1957 sold to Panama, renamed Janus.

The only TRUMP I can see is the Canadian built TRUMP of 1944 - could you check the spelling of that one again please?

DEMS gunners are difficult to research but you do appear to have his MN ships listed which is a bonus. You should also be able to find his name recorded on the MN ship's crew agreement for the period in which he was aboard. If you need this information I can give you more but it will require obtaining the files from Kew.

You can find the movements of the ships via the Convoyweb site here:http://www.convoyweb.org.uk/ports/index.html?home.php~armain. Just enter the ship's name into the search box. There will also be official movement cards for the ships held at Kew and can be downloaded for £3.30. Let me know if you need a link to them? 

Regards
Hugh


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## Barbaraf (Jun 13, 2014)

*DEMS and others*

Hi Hugh

Thank you so much for your helpful reply. I shall look up the ships' movements as you suggest.

It would be good to have the link to Kew? The record is sparse and there seem to be some gaps...for instance, he is on the Auristan/Avristan 19/05/43 til 31/05/43....then nothing entered until on Avristan again 01/10/43 til 28/03/44. All the while he is under President 3 for admin purposes.

My late father is Alfred Holt no JX393166. (NOT the shipping line Alfred Holt...though he DID used to get his mail occasionally!!)

The spelling on his record is definitely SS Trump, but then Auristan is spelt in two different ways on the typed record too. He was with SS Trump 17/04/44-28/08/44. mmm...a puzzle.

Thanks again for your interest and help. A brilliant website.

Barbara


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## Barbaraf (Jun 13, 2014)

*DEMS and others*

Alfred was also on HMS Bermuda as Able Seaman 10/03/45 until 23/01/1946. I remember he told me he was involved in the repatriation of POW's, and how even the hardiest crew members wept when the sick and emaciated POW's boarded ship.


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## Hugh MacLean (Nov 18, 2005)

Hello Barbara,

1945.
HMS BERMUDA joined the RN ships in TU111.3 and first went to the US Navy Base at Leyte before taking passage to Formosa where she attended the formal surrender of the island on 9th September. The ship assisted in evacuation of PoW from Japan and of civilian personnel from Weittsien. Later that month she was deployed at Shanghai for repatriation duties with HM Cruiser ARGONAUT and assisted in shore operations At Hong Kong.

http://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-06CL-Bermuda.htm

Movement Card for AVRISTAN held at Kew in *BT 389/2/259*

PROMETHEUS held in *BT 389/24/140*
The cards can be downloaded to your computer for £3.30 per ship.
.....................................................................................

PROMETHEUS, Ship's Official Logbook including Crew Agreement for 1943 held under the ship's official number, 147335, at Kew in piece *BT 381/2389*

AVRISTAN, Ship's Official Logbook, including Crew Agreement for 1943 held under the ship's official number, 168304, at Kew in piece *BT 381/2628*
AVRISTAN for the year 1944 held at Kew in piece *BT 381/3076*

Note the Crew Agreements are best viewed by visit to Kew as they are expensive to order online.

Interesting that your late father was named Alfred Holt. I wonder what they made of that onboard PROMETHEUS - one of Alfred Holt's Blue Funnel Line ships.

Regards
Hugh


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## Barbaraf (Jun 13, 2014)

*DEMS and others*

Hugh
Thank you. You are a wizard!
I shall follow up the leads you gave me.
BRILLIANT!!!!
xx


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## Barbaraf (Jun 13, 2014)

*Dems and others*

On Alfred's records, he is described as Acting Able Seaman, then Able Seaman, then Acting Able Seaman again, then reverting back to Able Seaman...is this a mistake? I am confused?
Anyone got any info?


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## Hugh Ferguson (Sep 4, 2006)

Prometheus was a Blue Funnel motor ship, built in 1925, and should be designated M.V (Not s.s).
During 3rd/4th Sept.1943 the Prometheus being a Military Trasport ship sailed from Bizerta to land troops at Salerno in Italy-I feel pretty sure that your father would have been a D.E.M.S gunner in her at that time.

This is the m.v.Prometheus prior to the war.


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## tom roberts (May 4, 2008)

My Pals wife is interested to find out if anybody might remember her father one Albert Openshaw she knows he was in the R.N. but he served in the M.N. as a gunner.She has no idea what vessels he sailed on,is there anyway she can find out more?.


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## Barbaraf (Jun 13, 2014)

*DEMS and others*

Thanks Hugh...it's so interesting. I have got the cards from Kew, and they are very helpful.
Thanks for the information and for the picture.


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## Barbaraf (Jun 13, 2014)

*DEMS and others*

Hello Tom

I ordered my late father's records from RN Command HQ in Porstmouth. He was a Royal Navy gunner on the DEMS.

The records are sparse but DO give names of ships and shore establishments.


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## Hugh Ferguson (Sep 4, 2006)

Barbaraf said:


> On Alfred's records, he is described as Acting Able Seaman, then Able Seaman, then Acting Able Seaman again, then reverting back to Able Seaman...is this a mistake? I am confused?
> Anyone got any info?


 Service personnel were not permitted by Geneva Convention so they were signed on as you describe.

Here's an example; all the "deck hands" were DEMS gunners!!!


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## Hugh MacLean (Nov 18, 2005)

Barbaraf said:


> On Alfred's records, he is described as Acting Able Seaman, then Able Seaman, then Acting Able Seaman again, then reverting back to Able Seaman...is this a mistake? I am confused?
> Anyone got any info?


No Barbara, it is not a mistake. It is due, I think, with substantive and non substantive ranks and common in the DEMS organisation.

Regards
Hugh


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## Hugh Ferguson (Sep 4, 2006)

Hugh Ferguson said:


> Service personnel were not permitted by Geneva Convention so they were signed on as you describe.
> 
> Here's an example; all the "deck hands" were DEMS gunners!!!


 The lot of a DEMS gunner was not a happy one! To start with the title is in itself not very inspiring as they are categorised as "equipment"; and no merchant ship had ever been designed to accommodate so many additional crew.
Consequently, they had to exist in "accommodation" that could never have complied with the B.O.T regulations. 

All of the men listed in the attachment existed in makeshift cabins hastily constructed in No.6 cargo-hold tween deck and that, in peacetime, would have been illegal.

(Incidentally, there are two names in the above mentioned list whose fate I would dearly love to learn of. They are William Browning and John Hill.
Hill had been demonstrating the loading and firing of a hand-gun and, accidentally, shot Browning in a leg. This was a serious wounding and urgent medical attention was needed. In a mid-Atlantic convoy the only hope was to get him transferred into a ship that had such a facility.
That was achieved with great difficulty and Hill (in peacetime a miner from Aber-Bargoed) was later, on arival in Bombay, arrested , marched ashore never to be seen, or known of again.

I was an apprentice at the time, knew both men well, and would dearly love to learn of what became of one, or both. 

You can be very proud of your father, Barbara: DEMS gunners lived a dangerous and difficult life and deserve much more recognition than they ever received,

(On the list referred to Browning is numbered 24 and Hill 27. This list was compiled by the U.S. Coastguard whilst our ship lay anchored off the Statue of Liberty in New York harbour awaiting convoy-ironically, no shore leave was permitted in case somebody absconded. We gazed straight up a brightly lit Broadway, knowing that it was the grey Atlantic for us and there were no bright lights thataway, not that kind anyway!
Note: only one man listed with a tattoo!)


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## Barbaraf (Jun 13, 2014)

*Dems and others*

Hello Hugh...

I wonder what star of fortune led me to this website?

I have , with your help guidance and information, spent much of the weekend researching my father's ships and their movements. I am building a detailed and increasingly clearer picture of his war years.

It is an inspiring and revealing journey.

We owe so much to those sailors and other servicemen ...yet those words seem inadequate. I am humbled.

Back to work....


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## allanc (Aug 19, 2005)

Barbara, this is an incredible website! My sailing mate, an ex Vindi boy who as 3rd mate on a small British ship which was transporting ammunition across the Channel on the day after D-Day, and spent time on Atlantic convoys, tells me harrowing stories of those days. Although he is a computer Luddite I have been able, through this site to obtain excellent photographs of four of the ships on which he sailed in those horrific days. Where else would this be possible?
Regards, AC.


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## Hugh Ferguson (Sep 4, 2006)

The landings at Salerno were really the beginning of the Second Front and took place well before 6th June 1944 which is generally regarded as *THE* Second Front. Anzio was another landing that heralded the turning of the tide no news of which ever appeared to have filtered into Stalin's narrow appreciation of events.
I knew soldiers who did Salerno and Normandy and you maybe sure that your father played a part in the success of the former.


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

Hugh Ferguson said:


> The landings at Salerno were really the beginning of the Second Front and took place well before 6th June 1944 which is generally regarded as *THE* Second Front. Anzio was another landing that heralded the turning of the tide no news of which ever appeared to have filtered into Stalin's narrow appreciation of events.
> I knew soldiers who did Salerno and Normandy and you maybe sure that your father played a part in the success of the former.


My father was with the 7th Cheshire Regiment as part of 5th Division and they were in the landings at Simeto in Sicily and in Italy at Salerno. Then they moved on to Naples, in preparation to be used as part of the attack to force a crossing of the Garigliano.

While in Naples they observed the _Queen Mary_ with a 'Y' on the funnel. Rumours spread that they were to go back to the UK to take part in the "second front" (other rumours suggested that they were going to Burma and were to be issued with solar topees. In the event they were shipped up the coast (not on the _Queen Mary_) and transferred to landing craft for the landings at Anzio. He said that they heard that they were not being sent out to Burma everyone was relieved. However after the Anzio landings some people had second thoughts!


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## Hugh Ferguson (Sep 4, 2006)

Ron, I think you would enjoy reading Eric Newby's,"War In The Appenines".
He landed in Sicily in a special force assigned to sabotage an airfield prior to the Pedestal Convoy to Malta in August 1942.
He was captured and later escaped and was protected by an Italian farming community-he later married a daughter, Wanda!
A lot of the history of the "first second front" is recounted in Eric's book


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## Barbaraf (Jun 13, 2014)

*DEMS and others*

Hi Hugh McLean
You mentioned that you found a Canadian Ship TRUMP built 1944?
I am puzzling over this bit of my Father's records.
He was attached to the SS (?) TRUMP during the period of D-Day.
Oral history...I remember him telling us that "the sea was red with blood"....Dad died in 1986 so I was a bit younger then and my memory is hazy...so I do think he must have experienced the D-Day landings.
I know that some 2000 ships were involved in D-Day.
I cannot find a ship TRUMP at all...except a submarine built in Barrow in 1944.
Any advice?


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## Barbaraf (Jun 13, 2014)

*DEMS and others*

...or...could this ship be the HNLMS TROMP...a light cruiser of the Royal Netherlands Navy which was involved in Operation Crimson...a British naval operation... in the Indian Ocean in July 1944?


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

Hugh Ferguson said:


> Ron, I think you would enjoy reading Eric Newby's,".


Hugh, I was a keen follower of Eric Newby's writing after reading "_A Short Stroll In The Hindu Kush_" and "_The Last Grain Race_" whilst at sea. I first read "_Love And War In The Apennines_" back in the early 1970s, on a winter business trip to Sweden. I picked it up at Heathrow, read it on the 'plane to Stockholm and then every night in the hotel. Brought it home and recommended it to my wife - it was during the "3-day week" fiasco and most nights we had power cuts so she found it hard going. She gave up on it and I passed it on to my father.

He read it and rather sniffily said, "Well it wasn't so bloody glamorous in the infantry." Never got much more out of him than that about his experiences in Sicily or Italy (or any other parts of the world that he visited during his Cook's Tour with the British Army in WW2.


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## Barbaraf (Jun 13, 2014)

Barbaraf said:


> Hi Hugh McLean
> You mentioned that you found a Canadian Ship TRUMP built 1944?
> I am puzzling over this bit of my Father's records.
> He was attached to the SS (?) TRUMP during the period of D-Day.
> ...


Or...I have discovered that 3 Dutch "fishing" ships...200tons..escaped from Netherlands at the time of the German occupation. One apparently was called the TROMP.
The Admiralty took them over and used them, flying the White Ensign.
They were used for various purposes during the war...??
Any advice?
Would this ship have a Movement card?


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## Barbaraf (Jun 13, 2014)

*DEMS and others*



Barbaraf said:


> ...or...could this ship be the HNLMS TROMP...a light cruiser of the Royal Netherlands Navy which was involved in Operation Crimson...a British naval operation... in the Indian Ocean in July 1944?


The timings for this one don't seem to add up. My father was in Newport when this ship was in the Indian Ocean.


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## Hugh MacLean (Nov 18, 2005)

Barbaraf said:


> Hi Hugh McLean
> You mentioned that you found a Canadian Ship TRUMP built 1944?
> I am puzzling over this bit of my Father's records.
> He was attached to the SS (?) TRUMP during the period of D-Day.
> ...


Hi Barbara,
The only ship of the time that I can find is the TRUMP which was Canadian, her Port of Registry was Prince Rupert, British Columbia and her official number was 174920. I can find no record of her at Normandy or anywhere else for that matter. I wonder if the MoD have transcribed the name of the ship correctly? 

Regards
Hugh


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## stan mayes (Jul 22, 2006)

'The D - Day ships' by John de S. Winser 
records - Dutch coaster Tromp built 1932 of 391 gross tons
loaded in London..Left Solent anchorage in convoy ETC5W..
ETA Juno beach on 11th June.
Stan


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## Barbaraf (Jun 13, 2014)

*DEMs and others*

Stan

Wow!!

Thank you so much!

That seems to be the final " missing piece" in putting together my late father Alfred Holt"s Naval war record.

I am grateful to you and to everyone on this amazing website.

Best wishes

Barbara


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## stan mayes (Jul 22, 2006)

Barbara,
There is a photo of Shetland Trader ex Dutch Tromp
in Shipsnostalgia Gallery (Coasters).
Regards,
Stan


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## Hugh Ferguson (Sep 4, 2006)

stan mayes said:


> Barbara,
> There is a photo of Shetland Trader ex Dutch Tromp
> in Shipsnostalgia Gallery (Coasters).
> Regards,
> Stan


Here she is:- www.shipsnostalgia.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/102263/title/shetland-trader/cat/517


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## John Rogers (May 11, 2004)

Stan I have some D-Day photos sent me which I will post the link for you to see.These are kind of different from what we have seen because when you click on the photo it changes from present day to June 6 1944 and the back again.
I will be visiting the Beaches and towns next month and on July 25th I will be spending the day in Sainte-Mere-Englise, which has a lot of history about the Paratroopers landing in the village square.


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## John Rogers (May 11, 2004)

Here is the link to the D-day photos I mentioned.

individual photos.





http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2014/06/scenes-from-d-day-then-and-now/100752/
[1]


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## Barbaraf (Jun 13, 2014)

*Dems and others....*

Hi Stan and Hugh
Thanks...I got the link to the photo of the Tromp/Shetland Trader.
How kind of you to find it for me.
I also looked at John's link to the "fading" photos. Fascinating, and shocking....and humbling.
Barbara


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## stan mayes (Jul 22, 2006)

Hi John,
Many thanks for the link to the series of very interesting photos.
Many memories for me...
Unfortunately I was unable to attend the anniversary at Normandy due to health
and mobility problems but I saw it all on TV...
Best wishes for your planned visit to the Normandy area..
Stan


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## ben27 (Dec 27, 2012)

good day john rogers,sm,today.05:07.#31.re:dems and others,just watched your link re:normandy.it was excellent,thank you for posting,regards ben27


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## John Rogers (May 11, 2004)

ben27 said:


> good day john rogers,sm,today.05:07.#31.re:dems and others,just watched your link re:normandy.it was excellent,thank you for posting,regards ben27


You are welcome Ben.


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## jimg0nxx (Sep 1, 2005)

Remarkable photographs John, many thanks for link.
Jim


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## Barbaraf (Jun 13, 2014)

Can anyone help me with another puzzle....about activity whilst at shore based establishments??

Alfred Holt's Naval Record shows attachment/service 

29 August-27 Sept 1944
at DEMS Devonport...

28 Sept-26 Oct 1944 at Raleigh

Oct 27-March 9th 1945 at Drake

April 4th-July 6th at Drake

I have worked out his service activity on board his ships, but WHAT would he have been doing for those months above?


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## Hugh MacLean (Nov 18, 2005)

He would more than likely have been undergoing training courses.

Regards
Hugh


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