According to military records Hugh Caulfield was born about 1880 in Ireland. The CWGC record that he was the husband of Mary Caulfield, nee Carley, of Meeting Street, Maghera, County Derry. There has never been a Meeting Street in Maghera. Hugh Caulfield signed up as T Kelly.Fireman Hugh Caulfield was serving on board the Mercantile Marine ship, the S.S. Tuscania. The Anchor liner Tuscania was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat in the Irish Sea some seven miles south-west of Islay on 5th February 1918. When the torpedo struck the Tuscania there were 39 men toiling in her boiler-rooms stoking coal. Not one of them survived. Fireman Hugh Caulfield was one of those 39 men who died that day. He was 38 years old.
Further Information
According to military records Hugh Caulfield was born about 1880 in Ireland.
GRONI records suggest only one Hugh Caulfield was born between 1878 and 1882. He was born to Hugh and Mary Caulfield on 10th July 1882 in Derry.
The CWGC record that he was the husband of Mary Caulfield, nee Carley, of Meeting Street, Maghera, County Derry. There has never been a Meeting Street in Maghera. However, there was a Caulfield family living in Meeting Street in Magherafelt in both census results.
Hugh Caulfield signed up as T Kelly.
The Anchor liner Tuscania was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat in the Irish Sea some seven miles south-west of Islay on 5th February 1918. On board were 2,235 American soldiers who were heading for Europe. A total of 166 soldiers and seamen lost their lives in the sinking of the Tuscania.
When the torpedo struck the Tuscania there were 39 men toiling in her boiler-rooms stoking coal. Not one of them survived. Fireman Hugh Caulfield was one of those 39 men who died that day. He was 38 years old.
Off the southernmost tip of the island of Islay stands a monument, similar in appearance to a lighthouse, which was erected by the American Government in 1919 as a memorial to those who died on a bitterly cold February evening in 1918.
