HMS Dunedin - The Survivors

Sixty seven men were landed in Trinidad on 7 December 1941, the sole survivors from a ship's company of four hundred and sixty eight who had been on board when the two torpedoes hit. Their rescue was commemorated in June 2005 at the extraordinary reunion with Roy Murray, the man who was on lookout duty on board SS Nishmaha and who was the first to see the stricken Carley floats. Read the remarkable story of the rescue.

The Dunedin Society has been lucky and honoured to know eight of these men since the Society first began to form in the late 1990s. Sadly, as time has passed so have some of our survivors and today only four remain. Each of them has their own page on this web site, but below you will see a collection photos from both wartime and today. They were - and are - wonderful men, to whom we pay massive tribute. Our five currently living survivors are Bill Gill, Jim Davis, Andrew (Boy) McCall, Bertie Jefferys and Arthur Binley. We have lost Harry Cross, Les Barter, John Miles and Albert Cooke.

In addition we know something of other survivors who died before the Dunedin Society was up and running, from families who have come forward with information or who are mentioned in historical documents.

Including the nine we have met, we have information on thirty one of the sixty seven men who made it to Trinidad. You can see their own pages from the ship's company page of this site.

Below is a gallery of photos of the nine we have been lucky and honoured to know.

l to r, Andrew (Boy) McCall, Les Barter, Jim Davis, Bill Gill, with Roy Murray (Nishmaha), June 2005	l to r, Jim Davis, Les Barter, Bill Gill, Harry Cross, 7 December 2001, the 60th anniversary with Lykes, the company that owned SS Nishmaha	Henley, 2001, with model of Dunedin. L to r, Bill Gill, Jim Davis, Harry Cross, Les Barter
Trinidad, December 1941 (or January 1942). L to r, Robert rainbow, Albert Cooke, Jim Davis.	Arthur Binley	Andrew (Boy) McCall
Harry Cross, taken from group photo of Hannover prize crew, March 1940	John Miles	L to r, Bill Gill, John Miles and Jim Davis. John and Jim were on the same raft together
L to r, Jim Davis, Les Barter, Harry Cross, Bill GIll, Arboretum 2003	Bill GIll, Arboretum 2003	L to r, Jim Davis, Harry Cross, Les Barter, Bill Gill at the Dunedin memorial, Arboretum, July 2003
l to r, Bill Gill, Harry Cross, Jim Davis, Les Barter, Arboretum, July 2003	Bill Gill, Remembrance day, Whitehall, 1999	Andrew (Boy) McCall, left, and Les (Boy) Barter, Nishmaha reunion June 2005
Bertie Jeffreys