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A few months ago I had a call from
one of our long standing members, Ken Turner, who helps
to run a small museum in Owston Ferry. He had been
approached by a visitor and asked if he had any
information about a Captain David Cook whose ship had
gone down in the First World War. “ No,” said Ken, “ but
I know a woman who has!” That woman being me and Captain
David Cook my great uncle, my grandfather’s brother,
who, incidentally, was also a Captain Cook. The Cooks
have been associated with water for the seven
generations that I have been able to trace, starting
with Richard Cook, a waterman, in Lincoln , about 1790.
His son, Richard was the owner of the Keel “Sarah” and
his son John, master of the Keel “Annie”, which later
became the “Lizzie and Annie”.
Captain David was one of three sons of John who all went
to sea . I did not know a great deal about David other
than he had been torpedoed in January, 1918. However.
this lack of information was soon to change! The
visitor was inquiring on behalf of a Mr. Chris Howard,
of Boston. Chris had come across a Commonwealth War
Graves headstone in St.Nicholas’ churchyard in Boston.
It was inscribed “Albert Joseph Wellberry, S.S.Humber”
Chris was intrigued by this and began to make enquiries
about the story behind the headstone. It transpired
that Albert had been a cook on the S.S.Humber which was
captained by my great uncle David Cook. I rang Chris to
find out why he was interested in him and was astonished
at the story he told me.
David was master of the S.S.Humber
trading between Leith, Wisbech, Kings Lynn, Newcastle
and Hull. On January, 23rd, 1918, David
arrived safely in King’s Lynn from Newcastle with a
cargo of timber. I said safely because merchant ships
had been targeted by German UB boats and many ships had
been lost. The German navy was on constant patrol in the
North Sea looking for ships carrying vital supplies.
Earlier on in the war some merchant ships had been armed
with four inch guns and a gun crew as decoys and had
done a lot of damage to the German navy, but by now
their U boats had become much more wary As he arrived
there his ship’s cook, possibly the most important crew
member after the captain, had been taken ill. David had
to find a replacement in a hurry as he was returning to
Newcastle the next day.! He rang through to his friend
the Harbourmaster in Boston for help. Luckily his friend
knew of a casual labourer called Albert Wellberry who
had been a cook in the army.and so on Jan 24th
Albert left for King’s Lynn and Uncle David set sail
that afternoon for Newcastle with 112 tons of grain.
The weather had been bad but the snow
had stopped and the wind eased, and it was hoped that
the trip would be uneventful but out under the North Sea
the UB 34 was waiting, like a shark looking for its
prey. The UB34, captained by Helmuth von Ruckteshell,
had been patrolling the North Sea off Newcastle and had
already sunk three vessels in the previous 24 hours. He
headed South towards Sunderland when he spotted the S.S.
Humber. He fired one torpedo at a range of 800 yards.
There were no survivors and only three bodies out of a
seven man crew were found. One of these was Albert
Joseph Wellberry! He was later identified by his father
and brother and buried in St. Nicholas churchyard. The
other crew members were father and son Thomas James and
Thomas William Legood, Lewis Robert Brasnett, William
Halliday and Joseph Oliver Wann.
I came across a reference to Capt.
David Cook in the “Epworth Bells, dated Feb.23rd.
1918. There had been a memorial service for him in
Owston church which was reported as full as he had been
well known and respected. Thanks to Chris Howard I had
learnt much more about my great uncle and his family and
all because someone was intrigued by a name on a
gravestone
Chris was so impressed by the story that he did a
tremendous amount of research and has written a booklet
about it and dedicated the proceeds to the R.N.L.I.
The book is "The
Dangerous Dawn".
Click here for more details. |
