There are some remarkable photos in our World War One collection.
This series of photographs comes from our Documentary Photographic Archive collection. They are in the World War One flickr photoset
In 1982 John Newton donated the images to the archive. He was born in 1926 and his uncle Cliff Newton was in the Navy during the First World War. He brought these remarkable images back from his active service and they remained in the family’s photo collection.
I could see the name of the vessel, Nora. Esbjerg is a Danish port,and I was able to establish that Nora was a Danish steamship used for cargo. She was sunk by a mine on 11th December 1916. The wreck is logged off the English east coast near Withernsea.
She was carrying a cargo of wood when she hit a mine, laid earlier by UC10. Having found information about UC10, I was initially confused to learn that she had been sunk with loss of all hands on August 21st 1916.
I hadn’t appreciated that even though UC10 was no longer active, the mines she had laid could still be lethal.
In the series of photographs you can clearly see the cargo of wood on board.There are no images of the crew, and our information from the donor gives no further details of why or how these photos were taken. It’s fascinating that someone was there to witness and record the event and that these images can now be shared as part of our research into our World War One related photo collections.
GMStories 