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The Tower Hill Memorial London
The twenty four thousand of the Merchant Navy and Fishing Fleets whose names are honoured on the walls of this garden gave their lives for their country and have no grave but the sea.
In September 1942 the Cunard SS Laconia was torpedoed and sunk off the coast of West Africa. The Laconia was one of over four thousand, seven hundred merchant ships sunk during the Second World War accounting for thirty-two thousand lives lost. The losses of the early years of the war peaked in 1942, the year the Laconia was sunk.
Geoffrey Purslow was born on 19th January 1916, the eldest son of George and Mabel Purslow. He grew up in Cheddleton, and Wolverhampton; then attended grammar school in the Shropshire market town of Newport. Geoffrey Purslow studied medicine at the University of Birmingham. The Second World War broke out before Geoffrey had completed his studies, and once he had graduated he entered the Merchant Navy to serve as a ship's surgeon.
In September 1942 Geoffrey Purslow was serving aboard the Cunard SS Laconia when the vessel was torpedoed and sunk off the coast of West Africa. After days adrift in a lifeboat, and gravely ill, he told a fellow survivor, that As I cannot be of any further help, and if I am now a source of danger to you all, it is better that I should go
. With that he stepped over the side of the lifeboat and disappeared from sight as the sea closed over him.
The story of Geoffrey Purslow is just one of many; this website records the sacrifice of the Merchant Navy during the Second World War as told by his story and the sinking of the SS Laconia.
