Able Seaman William J Pope
SS Stanleigh
Where is the grave?
Next to the new (2016) extension, with several other GWGC headstones, including the Non- Conformist HMCS Saguenay graves.
Stanleigh, steamship
POPE, William J, Act/Able Seaman, D/JX 218377, (President III, O/P), killed [Source]
The brackets indicate that he was allocated to HMS President III, and the O/P that he was ‘on passage’ i.e. was travelling to his new posting. One other person on the Stanleigh was ‘missing’, also on his way to the President III. President III is a ‘stone frigate’, i.e. a shore establishment.
Contrary to the gravestone, Stanleigh does not appear to have been a Royal Navy vessel. She is listed as Merchant Navy, and as having been bombed by an aircraft on the date of A/B Pope’s death, 14 March 1941. [Source]
Wikipedia reports that
‘The cargo ship was bombed and sunk in Liverpool Bay 12 nautical miles (22 km) west of the Bar Lightship by Luftwaffe aircraft with the loss of seventeen crew.’ [Source]
Stanleigh was in convoy off Liverpool Bay when she was attacked at night by a German Aircraft. She soon sank, rolling so that she destroyed one of her boats full of men. 6 men survived on a raft (oil barrels and planks) being picked up after a day afloat. She was identified by underwater details - including a German manufactured galley tile (she was built in Germany in 1912) [Source]
Stanleigh belonged to the Stanhope Steamship Company having been the Prekla. In 1937 she was purchased from T. N. Epiphaniades (a greek shipping owner, based in Piraeus) and renamed Stanleigh. On 14th Mar. 1941 she was bombed and sunk in Irish Sea by German aircraft with the loss of 17 lives.
CWGC tells us that he was the son of William James Pope and Lily Hillman Pope, of Newlyn, Penzance, Cornwall.
