Carl Martin Krammer – Mercantile Marine - S.S. G.A. Savage

 Mate Carl Martin Krammer – Mercantile Marine, S.S. G.A. Savage

Early Life and Family

Among the men from Swansea who served with the Mercantile Marine during the First World War were several who had not been born in Britain but had made Swansea their home. One such man was Carl Martin Krammer, a Danish mariner whose life and service became part of the city’s wartime story.

Carl was born in Denmark around 1881, the son of Peter and Maren Krammer. While little is known about his early life, it is likely that, like many young men from Denmark’s coastal communities, he went to sea from an early age, gaining experience as a fisherman and merchant seaman in northern European waters.

Carl Martin Krammer and Matilda Caroline Shaw
marriage certificate
St. Gabriel's Church, Swansea

By the early 1900s, Carl had settled in Swansea, where he began a new life. In 1905, he married Matilda Caroline Shaw, a widow, at St Gabriel’s Church, Swansea. The couple lived at 127 King Edward’s Road, and Carl’s occupation was recorded as Fisherman, reflecting Swansea’s close connection to maritime trades and seafaring.

Service and Loss

During the First World War, Carl continued his maritime career, serving in the Mercantile Marine as Mate aboard the S.S. G.A. Savage, a British cargo vessel engaged in coastal and short-sea trade. Merchant ships like the G.A. Savage were essential to maintaining the nation’s wartime supply routes but were also among the most vulnerable to enemy attack.

Registers and Indexes of Births, Marriages and Deaths of Passengers and Seamen at Sea

The Registers and Indexes of Births, Marriages and Deaths of Passengers and Seamen at Sea record that Carl Martin Krammer lost his life on 10^th March 1917, when the G.A. Savage was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine in the Bristol Channel. The vessel disappeared without trace, and all aboard were presumed lost.

Carl was 35 years old at the time of his death. His body was never recovered, and like so many of his fellow seamen, his grave is the sea.

The S.S. G.A. Savage

The S.S. G.A. Savage was a British steam cargo ship, built in 1900 by the Ailsa Shipbuilding Company of Troon, Scotland, and owned by the Zillah Shipping & Carrying Co. Ltd. of Liverpool. She was employed mainly in coastal trade around the British Isles, carrying industrial goods such as pitch, coal, and building materials vital to Britain’s wartime industries.

On 10^th March 1917, while en route from Workington to Swansea with a cargo of pitch, the G.A. Savage was reported missing and is presumed to have been torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat in the Bristol Channel. No survivors were found, and the precise circumstances of her loss remain uncertain.

Her disappearance illustrates the perilous nature of even domestic shipping routes during the war, as German submarines extended their campaign of unrestricted warfare into Britain’s home waters.

The German Submarine SM UC-47

The SM UC-47 was a Type UC II class minelaying submarine of the Imperial German Navy, commissioned in 1916 and built by Blohm & Voss, Hamburg. Measuring over 50 metres in length, she displaced about 400 tons surfaced and 480 tons submerged, and was equipped with six mine tubes, three torpedo tubes, and an 8.8 cm deck gun.

Operating from German bases along the North Sea and Flanders coasts, UC-47 carried out a series of patrols targeting Allied shipping in the Bristol Channel and Irish Sea. Records suggest that she was responsible for sinking the S.S. G.A. Savage on 10^th March 1917, while the vessel was travelling toward Swansea.

The UC-47 was herself destroyed later that same year. On 18^th November 1917, while operating off Flamborough Head, she was rammed and sunk by the British submarine HMS D4; all hands were lost.

The short but destructive career of UC-47 demonstrates the deadly efficiency of the German U-boat campaign, which sought to cripple Britain’s trade and starve the nation into submission — a campaign that claimed the lives of thousands of merchant sailors like Carl Martin Krammer.

Commemoration

S.S. G. A. Savage
Tower Hill Memorial, London
credit - Benjidog Historical Research Resources:
The Merchant Navy Memorial

Mate Carl Martin Krammer is commemorated on the Tower Hill Memorial, London, which honours the men and women of the Merchant Navy and Fishing Fleets who gave their lives during both World Wars and have no known grave but the sea.

Legacy

Although born in Denmark, Carl Martin Krammer made Swansea his home and became part of its close-knit maritime community. His service and sacrifice with the Mercantile Marine reflect not only his personal courage but also the international nature of Swansea’s seafaring population.

His name, recorded on the Tower Hill Memorial, stands among those of countless men who gave their lives to keep Britain’s lifelines open during wartime — a lasting testament to bravery that crossed borders and bound nations together through shared service at sea.