World War II Database

ww2dbaseEver since his school days in the United Kingdom, Hugh Martyr had been interested in history, particularly naval history. His interest in history later expanded to cover the American Civil War and the German V-weapons campaign against London. He is also an re-enactor and organizer of major re-enactment events, including the 200th anniversary of Waterloo event where over 8,000 were on the field. He joined the WW2DB team in 2018.

Photographs/Maps Contributions

Timeline Contributions

Hugh Martyr has also contributed 865 entries in the WW2 Timeline. A small sample of his timeline contributions is shown below.

» 16 Jul 1942: The USS Seadragon (Lieutenant Commander W. E. Ferrall, USN) sighted a Japanese transport ship at 0923 hours, beraing 301-degrees at a range of 16,000 yards. 10 minutes later, Seadragon sighted a convoy of four ships. The submarine sped toward the convoy, and once in attack position, fired two torpedoes at the second ship in the column from a range of about 1,250 yards; both missed, hitting the beach beyond after almost 5 minutes. All ships in the convoy then turned toward USS Seadragon and started firing their guns. Two more torpedoes were fired from the stern at the last ship of the column at the range of about 2,750 yards. The ship, 5,303-ton Japanese transport ship Hakodate Maru, en-route from Taiwan to Bangkok, Thailand, was struck by both of them and sank 2 miles off the coast north of Cape Varella, French Indochina. Seadragon meanwhile had submerged to 100 feet. At 1052 hours, Seadragon returned to periscope depth and could see only three ships. After the sinking, Seadragon set sail for Fremantle, Australia.

» 28 Apr 1945: The column of prisoners of war that SS-Feldgendarmerie personnel forced out of Marlag und Milag Nord prisoners of war camp in Westertimke, Germany on 2 Apr 1945 arrived at Lübeck, Germany.

» 10 Mar 1942: Dutch ship Palima disembarked several survivors of HMS Kuala, an auxiliary patrol boat serving as a civilian evacuation transport and sunken by Japanese aircraft on 14 Feb 1942, at Colombo, Ceylon.

» 4 Mar 1942: USS S-39 (SS-144; Lieutenant J. W. Coe) damaged Japanese fleet oiler Erimo south of Belitung Island in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra in the Dutch East Indies. Erimo's commanding officer, Captain Soma, beached Erimo on Bali Island to prevent sinking. The light cruiser Yura rescued survivors, but four crewmen were lost. Erimo was abandoned as a constructive total loss.

» 22 Mar 1940: The first boats of the French 10th Submarine Flotilla, Sibylle, Antiope, and Amazone, arrived at Harwich on the east coast of England, United Kingdom together with their depot ship Jules Verne. The boats would reinforce the British Home Fleet. 5 more boats would arrive during the next 10 days plus some boats of the 2nd Submarine Flotilla. The Sibylle would be the first to go out on active war patrol.

» 16 Jul 1944: Submarine HMS Sirdar (Lieutenant J. A. Spender, RN) sighted an enemy submarine with six torpedoes in the northern end of the Strait of Malacca between Malaya and the island of Sumatra. Sirdar broke surface upon firing and was lightly damaged (radar and wireless transmitter) by machine gun fire from the enemy. The enemy submarine was attacked again a few hours later by the submarine HMS Templar (Lieutenant T. G. Ridgeway, RN); eight torpedoes were fired in this attack, but they all missed. At 0903 hours five explosions were heard, most likely the torpedoes exploding at the end of their run. The patrol report states that it was a Japanese submarine of the RO-60 class, these however did not operate in this area; furthermore, no Japanese submarines of other types were in the area at that given time. The enemy submarine they encountered was actually the German submarine U-1062, which had departed Penang, Malaya on the previous day for Europe.

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