Bradford City (3)

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The Sinking of the Bradford City.

Introduction.

It has long been our intention, to put on our WebPages, the Diary that Captain William G Cross kept of the events surrounding the loss of the m.v.Bradford City (3), on 1st November 1941. Bryan Boyer, who now has possession of this historic document, together with it’s associated photographs, has kindly allowed us to copy it, in its entirety. It has been published before, both in Shipmates and in a Newsletter, but without the photographs.
However, through a series of remarkable coincidences and together with access to much recent material that has become available on the net, what started out as a relatively small article, has now grown into a much more informative document.
Richard Paul, who is the grandson of Captain Henry Paul, who was master of the Bradford City, has allowed us access to a wealth of hitherto unpublished material, including Captain Paul’s hand written log of the starboard lifeboat.
The editor of Sea Breezes has also been kind enough to allow us to reprint Mr Blackwell’s account of events. They too, had previously been reprinted in an edition of Shipmates.
Together with other material that has been acquired, is now possible to follow the movements of the Bradford City, from several months before the outbreak of WW2, to her final demise in the waters off South West Africa.
We welcome any further information from members, or other readers, that this article may prompt.
Mike Jones. 

This full and very interesting article covers 42 pages so it has been produced as a pdf document so that you can download it, print it out, and read it at your leisure.
Click here to download it. It takes time to download so have patience and wait for it as there is no indication it is downloading.

The photo on the right is a small image of the first page of the original log made up on the lifeboat.
We have now re-produced the 4 pages as black and white images so that it is easier to read. The images are rather large but you can zoom in to make it easier to read.

   Small image of page 1 of log
Page 1 - - Page 2 - - Page 3 - - Page 4  


Disclaimer: The statements on this page are the views of the person who posted them on the forum. The events took place many years ago and in most cases rely on those people's memories, and so we cannot guarantee the accuracy although every effort is made to check it.

Bradford City. Page [1] [2] [3]
Memories from RSL staff. Page No. [1] [2] [3]