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Interesting Finds

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    #32
    pedroeibar1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    P. Breathnach wrote: »
    ...His ship was captured by a German airplane in the South Pacific in June 1917, ....

    That’s cool! Never heard of a ship surrendering to a plane before! I’d hate to have been the skipper at the eventual court martial! WW1 in the South Pacific is not a topic that gets aired frequently, one on my list, but not near the top. I know von Spee was down there, and in WW2 the battleship named after him was sunk, an action in which my uncle took part , serving on HMS Ajax. He had been on the Hood but luckily was transferred. ( all proved).

    @OU812 – where do you think the Ford connection lies? HF was very ‘up’ on his Irish Ford links and had most of them traced - he and family regularly met relative when they holidayed in Ireland. Was it the maternal line?


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    #33
    OU812
    Registered Users Posts: 6,035 ✭✭✭OU812


    pedroeibar1 wrote: »
    @OU812 – where do you think the Ford connection lies? HF was very ‘up’ on his Irish Ford links and had most of them traced - he and family regularly met relative when they holidayed in Ireland. Was it the maternal line?

    Yup. Mother's family are Fords, Hail from Plymouth & Cork... It's been passed down that there was a connection, but I'm pretty sure it was just a distant cousin of some sort at this point.


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    #34
    P. Breathnach
    Registered Users Posts: 12,089 ✭✭✭✭P. Breathnach


    pedroeibar1 wrote: »
    That’s cool! Never heard of a ship surrendering to a plane before! ...
    It does seem to stretch credulity, doesn't it? Of course I chose to summarise the story in the most interesting way that I can, but it is essentially true: http://www.raoulandcampbell.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=16:wairuna-1917&catid=13&Itemid=123

    My father told me that his uncle had been involved in two shipwrecks, and it was when I was trying to discover if that was true, or just a story to entertain a child, that I found this tale. I didn't find anything about shipwrecks, but there is a dim echo in my head that one of them was supposed to have happened in Lough Swilly.

    [Edit: a weak echo is faint, not dim. I'm the one who is dim.]


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    #35
    pedroeibar1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    P. Breathnach wrote: »
    It does seem to stretch credulity, doesn't it?
    A fascinating story - thanks for sharing. I’ve never researched Merchant Marine, only RN, but have you tried for his Seaman’s card records ?

    If you get them it should lead to the ships he served on and then using that info search wrecks which should lead to more information on the Lough Swilly sinking.


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    #36
    pedroeibar1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    OU812 wrote: »
    Yup. Mother's family are Fords, Hail from Plymouth & Cork... It's been passed down that there was a connection, but I'm pretty sure it was just a distant cousin of some sort at this point.

    That’s more than a distant cousin :) – it’s generally accepted that the Henry Ford family came to Ireland in the 1500’s, although several Irish families also anglicised their name to Ford. There also is a Ford family in Cork city that is unrelated to Henry.
    Many of the non-motor Fords in the US are not really Fords, e.g. President Gerald Ford changed his name by deed poll and John Ford the film director is a Feeney from the Aran Islands.,


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    #37
    Hermy
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,302 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    On a related note one of my Pelly gang was apparently involved in trying to get Mr. Ford to set up in Cork.

    Genealogy Forum Mod



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    #38
    P. Breathnach
    Registered Users Posts: 12,089 ✭✭✭✭P. Breathnach


    pedroeibar1 wrote: »
    A fascinating story - thanks for sharing. I’ve never researched Merchant Marine, only RN, but have you tried for his Seaman’s card records ?

    If you get them it should lead to the ships he served on and then using that info search wrecks which should lead to more information on the Lough Swilly sinking.
    I did some work on it about 4 years ago. So far as I could trace, he served only in the British merchant marine, and I could find just a few fragments of information (such as his being on the Wairuna when it was captured). There wasn't enough to create a profile of his career.


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    #39
    RGM
    Registered Users Posts: 484 ✭✭RGM


    The difference between family legend and actual fact is a great topic. I mentioned my grandad's uncle earlier, this is a quote from a document written decades ago that recorded a lot of oral family history:
    Unauthenticated family lore has it that when Willie retired from the
    British Navy and his pension became due, he and a large number of other
    pensioners were taken to sea and their ship was deliberately scuttled.
    Just about everyone drowned but somehow, some way Willie survived.

    What a story that is. Well, what actually happened is that early in World War I, a single German submarine sunk three outdated British cruisers, killing more than 1400 men, many of whom were older reservists that had just been called back to duty. Willie was indeed aboard one of those ships and survived, but he was not actually pensioned or a reservist at the time. There was an uproar about the incident in Britain and a feeling that the ill-equipped ships had been sent to the slaughter for no reason. They became known as the "livebait squadron." So that's where the sentiment behind the oral history comes from, but of course the actual details of the legend are just silly and false.


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    #40
    pedroeibar1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    Hermy wrote: »
    On a related note one of my Pelly gang was apparently involved in trying to get Mr. Ford to set up in Cork.

    Interesting, although Ford did not need much persuading. Ford was very loyal to Cork and proud of his Cork heritage – his mother, an orphan of Belgian extraction was raised in Michigan by the Aherns, a childless Irish couple from Fair Lane in Cork. His father inherited that farm which is why Henry used the name Fairlane for his new Dearborn mansion (also used 1960’s for a car model). Henry and later family spent a lot of money on genealogical research in Ireland, corresponded with the PP of St. Mary’s (Cathedral) on the Ahern connection and the Baptism register there still bears the marks of that research, with ticks and X’s opposite several Ahern entries.

    There is a good story, no doubt apocryphal, of a visit Henry made to Cork in the early 1900’s. He was asked by the PP to make a donation to a hospital extension fund and wrote a cheque for £100. The local papers headlined “Ford gives £1,000 to hospital”. The PP immediate called on Ford to apologise, saying that he would immediately have a retraction and correction printed. Ford, admiring how he had been ‘set up’ said he would increase the amount to the £1000 if an appropriate inscription of his choosing could be engraved on the pediment, telling the priest it would be from the gospel of Matthew. Put on the spot by this, the priest very quickly flashed his mind over Matthew, found nothing contentious and agreed. Ford said he want Matthew 23:35 – (I came among you as a stranger and you took me in.)


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