Last month, I received an unusual email from Mervyn Maciel, my long-time correspondent (although we have still not met in person). “I don’t know if you are aware that I lost five members of my family when the ship they were returning to East Africa from Goa was torpedoed by the Japanese in November 1942,” wrote the sprightly UK-based 93-year-old, “my father, step-mother and three very young siblings perished. And while there were many survivors, amongst those who lost their lives on this ill-fated ship included young Goan brides on their way to Mombasa, and several other Indian families.”
Maciel pointed me to an article published
in The Eastern Eye by Emile Solanki: “On November 20th, 1942 at 17:00, the
British-built ship left Mumbai for South Africa. There were 222 crew members,
with 732 passengers, 9 lifeboats, and over 6,000 tons of cargo, including 60
tons of silver bullion. Its route was from Mumbai to South Africa via the
Seychelles, Mombasa, and Maputo, ending in Durban.”
Here, we must zoom out to understand the
geopolitical scenario. World War II was ablaze on multiple fronts. The
Americans were surging at Guadalcanal, and General Montgomery had seized
Tobruk. War historians tend to remember November 23 for two important shifts:
the Soviet Red Army fully encircled the Germans at Stalingrad, and the
strategically important port of Dakar shifted to Allied control. Most accounts
also record that a German U-boat sank the SS Benlomond off the coast of Brazil
(after which the second steward Poon Lim famously survived 133 days adrift).
What has generally been forgotten is restored by Solanki: “in
the early hours of the morning, 930 miles northeast of the Seychelles, Tilawa
was attacked. After the first torpedo attack, the first officer transmitted SOS
messages. Unfortunately, little could be done, and once the second torpedo hit
the ship sank quickly. For the next 2 days, all aboard would fight for their
lives and see their fellow passengers and loved ones drown to death.
Eventually, a rescue mission led by a Royal Navy Cruiser HMS Birmingham and
S.S. Carthage ensured 682 people were rescued. A total of 280 lives were lost.”
Solanki, whose great-grandfather drowned in the attack, writes
that “it is unknown why S.S. Tilawa was sunk in the Indian Ocean. Did the
Japanese Imperial Army know there was bullion on the ship, or, did they see the
ship as a military threat? Where were HMS Birmingham and S.S. Carthage when
Tilawa was attacked? Did the British, Indian, or Japanese Governments hold any
classified information, including any communication between these vessels
during the attack? It is believed S.S. Tilawa was the only passenger cargo
liner attacked in the Indian Ocean during the war. Few know of the incident,
yet many families suffered.”
Why are some losses memorialized, while others ignored? The
short answer, of course, is racism. But there’s also the question of
post-colonial nationalisms, and the inherently in- between “African Asians”. In
this regard, Mervyn Maciel’s family and their ilk pose profound conundrums to
contemporary simplifiers. Should their deaths be “acknowledged as part of
India’s war efforts”, as Alex Gemmel, the British High Commissioner, argued at
a memorial last month? Or does that medal, so to speak, belong on the opposite
set of chests, because that same deadly Japanese submarine went on to transport
Subhas Chandra Bose safely from Madagascar to Tokyo?
Here, it’s interesting to note the Tilawa has unexpectedly come
back into the news for more than one reason. As reported in The Times last
month, “the ship’s whereabouts remained a mystery until Ross Hyett, 69, a
champion racing driver, set up the London-based Argentum Exploration to locate
shipwrecks lying at depths that had previously precluded salvage. The SS Tilawa
was found in December 2014 and recovery work began in January 2017. The silver
bars, estimated to be worth about £32 million, were shipped to Southampton and
declared to the Receiver of Wreck, which oversees salvage law, and are still
kept in its secure warehouse.”
Much drama ensued, as the “South African government then claimed
it had “sovereign” rights over the silver, which meant it was entitled to the
bars without having to pay any salvage to Hyett. [But] Lord Justice Popplewell
yesterday dismissed the South African government’s claim at the High Court in
London, and ruled that the silver was a normal commercial cargo subject to the
rules on salvage. The judge said the government had probably “forgotten” about
the silver. He added: “The mere passage of time between cargo becoming derelict
and the commencement of salvage services does not affect whether it is a
recognised subject of salvage. It makes no difference whether it was salved
within hours of becoming wreck or after 75 years.”
Lots of hubbub about silver bullion, but nothing much about the
lives that were lost. And so, what has not been salved, at least to any level
of satisfaction, is the golden heart of my dear friend Mervyn. Although he went
on to have a distinguished career in the Kenya Civil Service - see the
excellent memoirs Bwana Karani (1985) and From Mtoto to Mzee (2014) at
ww.britishempire.co.uk – he never ceased pushing for official recognition of
the loss of the Tilawa, which finally occurred only last month, an
unconscionable 80 years after the tragedy.
In his initial email to me on this topic, he wrote that
“memories of the loss of my entire family and many others still haunt me” and
shared an anguished poem written in 1944, when he was just 15.
He
smilingly said,“I’ll come back soon” / But we knew not death would call so soon
/ So sudden God’s summons / So quick the deep sea did swallow them all / O
Destiny, No time to say farewell, no time to say ‘wait’ / Death’s cold
gatekeeper had opened the gate / And now that he’s gone, we can murmur not /
But trust in God for that’s our lot.