Albert Eley – Merchant Navy, S.S. Anglo Saxon

Fireman & Trimmer Albert Eley – Merchant Navy, S.S. Anglo Saxon

Early Life

Albert Eley was born in 1914 in Swansea, the son of Charles Eley and Amy Gertrude Blight. There is no surviving reference to Albert in the 1921 Census, suggesting he may have been living elsewhere at the time or that the family’s entry was not recorded.

Service in the Merchant Navy

Albert later joined the Merchant Navy, serving as a Fireman and Trimmer, one of the most physically demanding roles aboard a steam‑powered vessel. Working deep in the stokehold, he was responsible for feeding the boilers, managing coal supplies, and ensuring the ship maintained the steam power required for propulsion. His recorded address at the time of his final voyage was 50 Victoria Avenue, Newport.

He served aboard the S.S. Anglo Saxon, a British merchant ship operating during the early and perilous years of the Second World War, when German raiders and U‑boats were inflicting heavy losses on Allied shipping.

Sinking of the S.S. Anglo Saxon – 21^st August 1940

S.S. Anglo Saxon
credit - wrecksite

The S.S. Anglo Saxon was a 5,596‑ton British cargo steamer, built in 1929 and operated by the Nitrate Producers’ Steamship Company of London. In August 1940 she was sailing unescorted from Newport, Wales, to Bahía Blanca, Argentina, carrying a cargo of Welsh coal.

On the night of 21 August 1940, while approximately 800 miles west of the Canary Islands, the ship was sighted by the German auxiliary cruiser Widder, a heavily armed raider disguised as a merchant vessel. Widder’s commander, Kapitän zur See Helmuth von Ruckteschell, shadowed the vessel until darkness fell.

At 20:08 hours, Widder opened fire without warning. The attack was sudden, intense, and devastating. Shells rained down on the Anglo Saxon, destroying the bridge, wireless room, and lifeboats, and setting the ship ablaze. Of the 41 men on board, only seven managed to escape in a small 18‑foot jolly boat.

Their ordeal became one of the most extraordinary survival stories of the war. With minimal supplies, the seven men drifted across the Atlantic for 70 days, but only two survived to reach Eleuthera in the Bahamas. Albert Eley was not among the survivors.

The sinking of the Anglo Saxon became one of the most widely documented merchant ship tragedies of 1940, illustrating both the brutality of German surface raiders and the extreme dangers faced by unescorted merchant vessels.

Death and Commemoration

Merchant Seamen Deaths

Albert Eley
Tower Hill Memorial, London
credit - findagrave

According to the Merchant Seamen Deaths register, Fireman and Trimmer Albert Eley lost his life on 21^st August 1940 in the sinking of the S.S. Anglo Saxon. As he has no known grave, his name is commemorated on the Tower Hill Memorial, London, which honours the thousands of Merchant Navy personnel who died at sea during both world wars.