Friends of the Somme - Mid Ulster Branch  
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Updates for Able Seaman Thomas Cushnahan
Date Information
17/04/2020 Three ships which had not been hit suddenly began to be abandoned by their crew in the sheer terror and confusion going on around them, one of the ships being abandoned was Empire Moonbeam. After some time, two of the ships including Empire Moonbeam’s crew were persuaded to re-board their vessels, unfortunately not before the sea had taken seven of her crew to a watery grave.
17/04/2020 Thomas Cushnahan was the son of Joseph and Elizabeth Cushnahan. It seems Joseph Cushnahan and Elizabeth Percy were married on 20th May 1907 in Belfast.
17/04/2020 Thomas Cushnahan served with the Merchant Navy in World War Two.
17/04/2020 Thomas was the husband of Annie Cushnahan.
17/04/2020 Able Seaman Thomas Cushnahan was serving on board S.S. Empire Moonbeam when he died on 8th August 1942.
17/04/2020 The Empire Moonbeam was a 6,849 steam cargo ship. The ship had left Sydney, Cape Breton in the thirty-six ship Liverpool bound Atlantic Convoy SC-94 on the 31st July 1942, which was accompanied by six naval escorts.
17/04/2020 A total of seventeen U-boats then descended on the convoy and on the 8th August. In less than two hours five merchantmen had been sent to the bottom in two separate attacks. In the second attack three ships were simultaneously hit and is possibly what caused the following incident.
17/04/2020 Thomas Cushnahan was born about 1914.
17/04/2020 The U-boat attack eventually ended on the 10th August with eleven ships sunk and a further two damaged, with the convoy reaching port three days later.
17/04/2020 One explanation given by the Second Officer of another ship in the convoy who was on watch at the time may explain what caused the men to abandon ship. At the time he recalls his own ship being hit by a resounding thump causing the ship to heave over. Believing his own ship had been torpedoed (of which he had previous experience), he was surprised to see after inspection the ship had not been hit, but the crew also believing they had been torpedoed were preparing to release their own lifeboats and were subsequently ordered to secure the boats.
17/04/2020 It is believed that what all the ships may have felt had been caused by a huge underwater explosion from one of the munitions ships cargoes which had been already been torpedoed, exploding under water.
17/04/2020 Able Seaman Thomas Cushnahan has no known grave and is commemorated on Panel 44 of the Tower Hill Memorial.
17/04/2020 The CWGC record Able Seaman Thomas Cushnahan as the son of Joseph and Elizabeth Cushnahan of Portglenone, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. He is also listed as being the husband of Annie Cushnahan of Lurgan, County Armagh, Northern Ireland.
17/04/2020 The 1911 census lists the family at house 11 in Derryhirk, Aghagallon, County Antrim. Derrykirk lies just north of Lurgan. Joseph Cushnahan was a boat man on Lagan Canal.
17/04/2020 On the 5th August part of the convoy was sighted by a U-boat.
14/09/2019
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