HQS Wellington, another very good friend to Maritime Films UK, has honoured us by commissioning a film for their latest exhibition, opening in May – ‘Abandon Ship!’ This will particularly focus on the story of two merchant ships sunk in the First and Second World Wars. From the First, the refrigerated cargo liner the Otaki, sunk in 1917 in the Eastern Atlantic by an armed merchant raider after an heroic action (with just one gun – picture) to try and beat the heavily armed German ship off. The Otaki’s Captain, Archibald Bisset-Smith, fell in the action but was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross – one of only two in the Merchant Navy so honoured. He had to be enrolled, again after his death, in the Royal Naval Reserve in order to receive his VC, as it is for armed forces personnel only.
Abandon Ship! (Part 1)
27 June 2017
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About Rob
Rob is a TV producer, reporter and camera operator with 30 years’ experience at the BBC, Channel 4 and ITN, in news, factual and documentary production. He is a four times award winner, whose awards include a coveted Royal Television Society award for his work on Channel 4 News. His association with The Maritime Foundation goes back to 1995, when he won the first Desmond Wettern Maritime Media Award for a series of reports that led to a major documentary on the loss of the bulk carrier Derbyshire.