Fireman and Trimmer Joseph BIRCH.
Merchant Navy S.S. Ocean Courage (Liverpool).
15 Jan 1943 aged 23.
Tower Hill Memorial, Panel 75.
Son of Joseph Birch, and of Jane Birch, of Stockport, Cheshire.
At 03:15 hours on 15 Jan 1943 the unescorted Ocean Courage (Master Thomas Harold Kemp) was hit on the port side on the bulkhead of #2 hold by a torpedo from Type IXD2 U-182 (Kapitänleutnant Asmus Nicolai Clausen) and sank by the bow within 90 seconds about 200 miles south of the Cape Verde Islands.
The crew of 48 men, eight gunners and two passengers had no time to launch the lifeboats and most of them were lost in the sinking, including the master, six gunners and both passengers. Only a few men rescued themselves on rafts and debris, but only six men on one of the rafts were found and picked up by the British motor merchant Silverwalnut on 21 January and landed at Norfolk, Virginia.
S.S. Ocean Courage
