Benjamin Frederick Jones – Merchant Navy, S.S. Coast Wings

Mess Room Boy Benjamin Frederick Jones – Merchant Navy, S.S. Coast Wings

A Young Merchant Seaman of the Second World War

Another sailor who lost his life during the Second World War while serving with the Merchant Navy, and about whom only very limited records survive, was Benjamin Frederick Jones, born in 1916 at Llandyssul, Cardiganshire. Although the surviving documentation is sparse, it preserves the essential outline of a young man whose service placed him among the many merchant seafarers who faced extreme danger during the early years of the war.

Merchant Navy Service

Merchant Seamen Deaths

Benjamin served as a Mess Room Boy, one of the junior ratings responsible for assisting with the preparation and serving of meals, maintaining the mess areas, and supporting the daily life of the crew. According to Merchant Seamen Deaths, Benjamin Frederick Jones lost his life following the sinking of the S.S. Coast Wings on 27 September 1940, during a period when merchant ships were suffering heavy losses from mines, aircraft, and U‑boats in the intense early phase of the Battle of the Atlantic.

The Loss of the S.S. Coast Wings

Benjamin Frederick Jones 
Tower Hill Memorial
credit - Benjidog Histroical Research Resources.
The Merchant Navy Memorial

The Coast Wings was a British cargo steamer operating in the dangerous waters around the British Isles during 1940. On 26 September 1940, she was torpedoed by the German submarine U‑46 and sunk, with the loss of all 16 crew members. The attack left no survivors, and the vessel disappeared into the wartime casualty lists as one of many merchant ships destroyed during the height of the U‑boat campaign. Among those lost was Mess Room Boy Benjamin Frederick Jones, whose service ended in the cold waters of the Atlantic.

Commemoration

With no known grave but the sea, Benjamin Frederick Jones is commemorated on the Tower Hill Memorial, London, where his name stands among those of thousands of Merchant Navy personnel who gave their lives to keep Britain supplied during the war. Though the surviving details of his life are few, his service and sacrifice remain part of the wider story of the Merchant Navy’s courage and loss.