First Electrician Christopher Fagan
An early casualty casualty of war, Christopher Fagan is remembered on his parents’ grave.
Christopher Fagan
In loving memory of
CHRISTOPHER FAGAN
WHO DIED 9TH OCTOBER 1955 AGED 71 YEARS
AND EDITH ALICE HIS DEAR WIFE WHO DIED 27 JANUARY 1969 AGED 80 YEARS
AND CHRISTOPHER THEIR SON
KILLED AT SEA 8TH JUNE 1940 AGED 33 YEARS
The Barrow News 10 October 1940 (from which portrait of Christopher is taken) reported:
The Barrow News, 10 October 1940The wife and parents of Chief Electrician Christopher Fagan, eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. Fagan, 16, Abbots-vale, Barrow, have been officially informed that he has been killed. He was serving aboard the Orient liner Orama – sunk off Norway when engaged as a troopship.
Mr. Fagan was 34, with two children. He attended Barrow Junior Technical School, and served his apprenticeship at the Shipyard. He went to sea when he was about 22 years of age, the Orama being his first ship, and he had served with the Orient Line ever since. He lived at Gravesend.
CWGC reports that he was son of Christopher and Edith Alice Fagan; husband of Phyllis Ivy Fagan, of Gravesend, Kent. He is commemorated on Panel 76 of the Tower Hill Memorial.
ORAMA; Owned by the Orient Steam Navigation Co. and built in 1924 by Vickers; 19,840 tons; 632x75.2x32.9 ft.; 3,900 n.h.p.; 18 knots; turbine engines.
The ocean liner Orama (Capt. F. G. Sherburne), was requisitioned as an auxiliary troop transport for the British Expeditionary Force to Norway in the spring of 1940. On 8th June 1940, aircraft carrier HMS Glorious, destroyers HMS Acasta and HMS Ardent, the tanker Oil Pioneer and the Orama were some 300 miles West of Narvik, just as the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper, escorted by lighter craft, were sweeping this area and completely overwhelmed the British, sinking all five ships. The Orama was sunk by gunfire from the Admiral Hipper and was also torpedoed. Nineteen men were killed and 280, including Capt. Sherburne, became prisoners. The Orama was not carrying troops at the time.
The Orama had been used to transport children to Australia as part of the Kindertransport programme, where Jewish children were helped to escape to safety. [Source]
