Edward James – Mercantile Marine - S.S. Clearfield

Fireman Edward James – Mercantile Marine, S.S. Clearfield

Early Life and Family

Edward James was born in Swansea in 1863. Very little is known about his early life or family background, as few records have survived. The only confirmed detail from civil registration records is that in 1888, he married Elizabeth Ellen Atfield in Newport, Monmouthshire.

Like many men from Swansea and the South Wales coast during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Edward pursued a life at sea. He worked as a Fireman in the Mercantile Marine, one of the most arduous and physically demanding occupations aboard a steamship — maintaining the ship’s boilers and keeping the furnaces stoked with coal, often in sweltering conditions deep below deck.

Service and Loss

During the First World War, Edward James served aboard the S.S. Clearfield, a British merchant vessel that operated on transatlantic trade routes. These ships were vital to the war effort, carrying essential supplies such as oil, coal, and manufactured goods to sustain Britain and her allies.

On 23^rd October 1916, while en route from Philadelphia to Barry, laden with oil, the Clearfield was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-55 in the Atlantic Ocean, approximately 150 miles west of Fastnet Rock. The explosion was devastating, and the ship sank rapidly, leaving no survivors — all hands were lost, including Fireman Edward James, aged 53.

The S.S. Clearfield

S.S. Clearfield

The S.S. Clearfield was a British steam cargo ship built in 1908 by Richardson, Duck & Co. Ltd. of Stockton-on-Tees and owned by the Anglo-American Oil Company Ltd., London. With a gross register tonnage of 3,777, she was designed for the transportation of refined oil products across the Atlantic.

On 23^rd October 1916, the Clearfield was returning from Philadelphia to Barry Docks when she was intercepted and torpedoed without warning by U-55, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Wilhelm Werner. The attack took place in the open Atlantic, and the vessel disappeared beneath the waves with her entire crew of 44 men.

The loss of the Clearfield came during the height of Germany’s campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare, when merchant ships — regardless of their cargo or nationality — were attacked in an effort to cut off Britain’s essential supply lines.

The German Submarine U-55

The SM U-55 was a Type U-51 ocean-going submarine of the Imperial German Navy, ordered from the Germaniawerft shipyard in Kiel on 23 August 1914, launched on 18 March 1916, and commissioned on 8 June 1916. She displaced 715 tons surfaced and 902 tons submerged, measured 65.2 metres in length, and carried a crew of around 35 men.

U-55 was armed with four 50 cm torpedo tubes — two forward and two aft — and carried nine torpedoes, as well as an 8.8 cm deck gun for surface engagements.

Under the command of Kapitänleutnant Wilhelm Werner, U-55 became one of the most active and notorious submarines of the war. Between 1916 and 1918, she undertook 14 patrols with the II Flotilla, sinking 61 merchant vessels totalling more than 129,000 tons, damaging seven others, and capturing two as prizes.

Among her most infamous attacks were the sinking of the hospital ship HMHS Rewa on 4^th January 1918, and the RMS Carpathia — famed for rescuing survivors from the Titanic — torpedoed and sunk by U-55 on 17^th July 1918.

Werner’s conduct during several of these sinkings was later investigated for war crimes, following reports that he had ordered the deliberate killing of shipwrecked sailors.

After the Armistice, U-55 was surrendered at Harwich on 26^th November 1918, transferred to Japan in 1920, where she was commissioned into the Imperial Japanese Navy as O-3, and eventually scrapped at Sasebo Naval Base between March and June 1921.

The record of U-55 stands as one of the most destructive in the history of the First World War submarine campaign — a stark example of the dangers faced daily by unarmed merchant seamen like Edward James, who sailed under constant threat of attack.

Commemoration

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

Fireman Edward James is commemorated on the Tower Hill Memorial, London, which honours more than 36,000 officers and men of the Merchant Navy and Fishing Fleets who died at sea in both World Wars and have no known grave but the sea.

Legacy

Although few details remain of his personal story, Edward James’s life reflects the endurance and sacrifice of Swansea’s seafaring community. Working deep in the ship’s engine room, he represented the unseen labourers whose efforts kept Britain’s ships moving through perilous waters.

His name, inscribed on the Tower Hill Memorial, ensures that his service — and that of thousands like him — will be remembered as part of the proud maritime legacy of Swansea and the Mercantile Marine.