'Wear', 1944

The Wear was a 1,892-ton, 82-metre single screw steamer that had been built in England in 1911. She carried coal from Newcastle to Melbourne and, during World War II, was a Defensively Equipped Merchant Ship. At around 1am on 8th September 1944, she was steaming at about 10 knots towards Newcastle in calm seas 15km off Montague Island when she was struck amidships by a Norwegian merchant ship, the Anatina, that spent most of the war working around the Australian coast but also transported troops to New Guinea. The two ships locked together for about 10 minutes. ‘Many of the crew jumped into the sea in their pyjamas, with the vessel sinking some forty minutes later.’ One of its crew (variously reported as 32 or 56) lost his life. A Court of Marine Inquiry ruled that a proper look-out had not been kept on the Wear.

Photograph: The Wear