Description
British War and Mercantile Marine War Medal Pair, Snow, Killed SS Arcadian
Medals correctly impressed: Luke J. Snow
Greaser Luke James Snow. Mercantile Marine, S.S. “Arcadian” (Belfast) Died 15 April 1917 Age 41 years old. Commemorated Tower Hill Memorial. Son of William and Fanny Snow; husband of Agnes Mary Snow (nee Phillips), of 26, Radcliffe Rd., Southampton. Born at Southampton.
Wiki refers:
SS Arcadian was a Barrow-in-Furness built passenger liner constructed in 1899 by Vickers, Sons & Maxim Ltd for the Pacific Steam Navigation Company as SS Ortona. In World War I she served with the Royal Navy and was sunk by a U-boat in 1917.
On 15 April 1917 Arcadian was en route from Thessaloniki (Salonika) to Alexandria with a company of 1,335 troops and crew and escorted by a Japanese Navy destroyer. Shortly after completing a boat drill, while 26 miles north east of the Greek island of Milos, Arcadian was hit by a single torpedo from the German submarine SM UC-74 and sank within six minutes with the loss of 279 lives.[6] A contemporary newspaper article described how four of Arcadian’s overcrowded lifeboats were successfully lowered before she sank. Some of the dead were cooks and stokers who were working below decks. The escorting destroyer had two torpedoes launched at her while she was attempting to rescue men from the water; survivors reported that she had lowered three of her own boats while going “at full speed”.[7] More survivors, who had been clinging to a raft, were rescued at midnight by the Q-ship HMS Redbreast.[8] Among the dead was the eminent bacteriologist, Sir Marc Armand Ruffer, who was returning to Alexandria after advising on the control of an epidemic among troops based at Thessaloniki.[9]
