British World War II ships leave historic impressions

The April 30, 1942, burial service held at Morehead City’s Bayview Cemetery for the British seamen who went down with the San Delfino during World War II didn’t bring closure.

 

Two more bodies washed up on the Northern Outer Banks weeks later. At least one was also a victim of the attack on the San Delfino by Germany’s U-203 off Hatteras Island east of Rodanthe that occurred on April 9, 1942. 

He was positively identified as Fourth Engineer Officer Michael Cairns, 28, of Dundee, Scotland. The other body, found off Nags Head on May 20, 1942, was classified as “unknown.”

 

Paul Branch, retired Fort Macon State Park Ranger and a military historian, suggests that the unknown seaman’s body may actually have come from the British armed trawler, the Bedfordshire, which was sunk by a torpedo blast from U-558 on May 11, 1942, off Cape Lookout. 

Graves of Cairns and the unknown seaman are located in Buxton Woods on a small plot marked by a tidy, white picket fence, nestled beneath tall pines and cedar trees. The tiny cemetery is near the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse at Buxton.

 

Four more British sailors are buried in Ocracoke. Their bodies certainly came off the Bedfordshire. Citizens of Ocracoke buried the seamen near the village cemetery. The land for the British graves was donated by Alice Wahab Williams. 

Two of the deceased were identified: Sub-Lt. Thomas Cunningham, 27, of Blackpool, Lancashire, England; and 2nd Class Telegraphist Stanley Craig, 24, of London, England. The other two bodies were buried as unknown sailors.

 

The exact location of the wreck of the Bedfordshire “somewhere off Cape Lookout” remained a mystery for about 40 years. 

In the early 1980s, the wreck was discovered by a Morehead City dive charter boat. Olympus Dive Center founder Capt. George Purifoy and his dive partner Mike Sheen hit upon the Bedfordshire quite by accident.

 

A National Park Service (NPS) document from 2015 noted that Purifoy and Sheen thought “their dive boat anchor had caught on a rock. Diving in for a closer inspection, they discovered that the anchor had hooked into the armed trawler.” 

The Bedfordshire wreck lies at a depth of 105 feet about 20 miles almost due south of “the Cape Lookout hook,” just beyond the treacherous waters of Cape Lookout Shoals.

 

Scuba Diver Life magazine interviewed Will Sassorossi, a maritime archaeologist. “I cannot describe fully the feeling of reverence I had when I first saw the remains of the vessel,” he said, “knowing that all 37 crew members died on board that night.” 

“It is hard to describe this feeling, but ultimately I wanted to make sure that those who were lost here are never forgotten,” Sassorossi said. 

The Bedfordshire incident has special significance to the citizens of Morehead City, because the ship was stationed at the port here waiting for her assignment in the war effort. 

The NPS document also revealed the identity of four British sailors who were assigned to the Bedfordshire…but never boarded the vessel when it departed from Morehead City early in the morning on May 11, 1942. 

Sam Nutt, the ship’s stoker, and Richard Salmon, the lead cook, stayed too long at a local tavern and were jailed to sober up. Upon their release, with no charges, they went to the dock only to find that the Bedfordshire had already sailed without them. 

Seaman Richard Steadman hurt his knee and was transferred to another ship. John D. Fisher, the ship’s steward, also missed the departure of the Bedfordshire…but we’re not sure of the reason why.

Coastal N.C. remembers World War II British seamen

Nine British seamen who died during World War II off the coast of North Carolina were buried in the spring of 1942 at cemeteries in the communities of Morehead City, Buxton and Ocracoke. 

Because of annual remembrances, the bonds that connect these Outer Banks towns grow stronger each year and reinforce North Carolina’s reputation as the nation’s most patriotic state.

 

German U-boats were responsible for torpedoing and sinking two British ships…only about a month apart…that claimed the lives of 65 seamen. 

The first incident was the sinking of the San Delfino on April 9, 1942. A 479-foot oil tanker owned by the Eagle Oil Shipping Company of London, England, her cargo consisted mainly of 11,000 tons of aviation fuel. The vessel left Houston, Texas, and was headed for Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, to join a convoy for the transatlantic crossing to Great Britain.

 

The vessel encountered Germany’s U-203 east of Rodanthe off Hatteras Island. A torpedo struck the San Delfino’s starboard side, and the ship erupted in a sheet of flame. Alan Taylor, creator of SunkenShipsOBX.com, wrote: 

“Capt. Elbert Gumbleton immediately called for the crew to abandon ship. Two lifeboats were lowered. Unfortunately, one of the lifeboats got caught in the current and was dragged into a pool of fuel,” killing 24 crew members and four gunners. The second lifeboat, with 22 aboard, was rescued. Survivors were delivered to the port in Morehead City. 

Within a few days, two bodies from the San Delfino washed ashore on Core Banks and were taken to the morgue in Morehead City. They were identified as Sailor John Latto Fisher, 25, of Edinburgh, Scotland, and Artillery Gunner Maldwyn Jones, 21, of Rhondda, Glamorgan, Wales. 

Locals rallied to ensure these men received a proper burial. A service was held in Bayview Cemetery on April 30, 1942, with Arrangements by the Bell and James Funeral Home in Morehead City. Co-owner Alphonso Hamilton James also served as the county coroner. 

Paul Branch, Fort Macon State Park Ranger and a military historian, said: “About a week after the bodies of Fisher and Jones were laid to rest, a third body from the San Delfino washed up.”

 

Branch said that James performed “a common technique at the time – removing the skin from the fingertips and then rehydrating it.” James scoured through United Kingdom fingerprint records to positively identify the body of Able Seaman James Robinson Watt, 25, also of Edinburgh. 

“However, in the years following WWII, Alphonso James changed careers from undertaker to county clerk of court in 1948. The funeral home and its records were destroyed in a fire, and Watt’s fingerprint records went with it. The paperwork that identified Watt was lost,” Branch said. 

“With no concrete proof of identification possible, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission is reluctant to confirm the identity,” Branch said. “The only way to actually confirm the identity now would be to exhume the body for DNA and try to locate any living members of Watt’s family for comparison. Obviously, no one is going to go through all those hoops.” 

Herb Stanford, who has written two books about Carteret County history, reviewed Branch’s research and stated that the “unknown San Delfino seaman is almost absolutely certain” to be James Robinson Watt.

 

Each year, coinciding with an annual Veterans Day observance, a “Day of Remembrance Service” is conducted at the site of the three British sailors’ graves in Bayview Cemetery. The service is co-sponsored by the Morehead City Historical Preservation Society and Chapter 639 of the Military Order of the Purple Heart.

 

British sailors helped defend Outer Banks in WWII

U.S. anti-submarine patrols received a much-needed boost during World War II with the arrival of 24 Royal Navy vessels from Great Britain in April and May of 1942.

These British ships were assigned to help patrol the Outer Banks region of North Carolina and counterattack the German U-boats that were wreaking havoc in our coastal waters.

The Bedfordshire was built in 1935 as a 162-foot commercial fishing trawler by Smith’s Dock Company of South Bank, Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, England. She was owned by Bedfordshire Fishing Company of Grimsby, Lincolnshire, England.

The Admiralty acquired the Bedfordshire in August 1939 and converted her to wartime service. In America, she was stationed at Morehead City, N.C.

 

While on patrol off Cape Lookout on May 11, 1942, the Bedfordshire was attacked by Germany’s U-558. The first two torpedoes fired from the U-boat missed the target, but a third torpedo blew up the trawler. All 37 hands aboard died. 

Carteret County, N.C., people were both stunned and greatly saddened about the sinking of the Bedfordshire. Sub-Lt. Thomas Cunningham, 27, of Blackpool, Lancashire, England, had become quite well-known around Morehead City, recalled local historian Rodney Kemp.

 

Only weeks prior to the tragedy, Aycock Brown, a former editor of The Beaufort News, had been Lt. Cunningham’s guest aboard the Bedfordshire while it was docked in port at Morehead City. 

According to Carlton Harrell, author of “Ocean Ablaze: War Reaches the Outer Banks,” published in 2013, Lt. Cunningham and Brown had even shared a tumbler or two of British rum.

 

During World War II, Aycock Brown worked as a special civilian agent for the Naval Intelligence Office. The purpose of his meeting with Lt. Cunningham was to collect a supply of British Royal Navy Flags for use by town leaders at Bayview Cemetery in Morehead City. 

The flags were needed to carry out a memorial service and burial there on April 30, 1942, to honor a pair of British sailors who were killed when their ship, the San Delfino, a British merchant tanker, was attacked by U-203 on April 9, 1942.

 

It sunk off Cape Hatteras, due east of Rodanthe. Two bodies washed ashore on Core Banks and were delivered to the morgue in Morehead City. (The San Delfino lost 24 crew members and four gunners who were aboard; 22 survivors were rescued and returned safely to the port at Morehead City.) 

Lt. Cunningham gladly gave Aycock Brown flags for the two deceased San Delfino sailors as well as several spares. 

Kemp noted that one of the ironies of war is that one of the extra Royal Navy Flags that had been donated by Lt. Cunningham would be used to commemorate his own gravesite in Ocracoke. 

Lt. Cunningham’s body was one of four bodies from the Bedfordshire that washed ashore on Ocracoke. 

Also identified was 2nd Class Telegraphist Stanley Craig, 24, of London, England. The other two bodies were buried as unknown sailors. 

The British Cemetery at Ocracoke as well as one at Buxton on Hatteras Island are distinguished as the smallest in the world administered by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

 

The North Carolina State Property Office granted a perpetual lease for land contained within the two cemeteries in 1976, thereby designating the properties as “British soil.” Royal Naval Flags fly above both cemeteries at all times.

 

A story that circulated after the death of Queen Elizabeth II on Sept. 8, 2022, was: “The people at Ocracoke and Buxton made the meaningful gesture of lowering the British Royal Navy Flags to half-staff.”

 

Morehead City gets a taste of ‘Corn Bread Sticks’

Among the earliest North Carolina coastal seafood restaurants that continue to thrive is the Sanitary Fish House and Restaurant, which opened in 1938 on the Morehead City, N.C., waterfront.

 

Tony Seamon and Ted Garner ran charter fishing boats out of Morehead City. Some people said they didn’t want to fish all day; they were just interested in a “fresh fish dinner.” 

Capts. Seamon and Garner responded by opening a small restaurant with a seating capacity of 20 – 12 stools at a counter and two tables seating eight. They had a waiting line on the first day. 

The owners named the place “the Sanitary,” because they wanted people to know it was ultra-clean.

 

The slogan for fish sold fresh and cooked at the Sanitary was: “They slept in the ocean last night.” 

In 1938, a large seafood platter cost 85 cents, and diners could eat all they wanted for $1. 

In that age and time, customers at the Sanitary were served “Corn Bread Sticks” (employee Roy Henderson’s recipe). 

The story goes: “Capt. Seamon went to New Orleans to attend a restaurant association meeting back in 1947 or 1948, and when he came back, he started calling them hushpuppies instead of corn bread sticks.” 

Somebody at the meeting had shared with him the “origin” of hushpuppies…and Capt. Seamon lapped it up. It goes like this: 

“A fisherman come ashore down in the bayou and began to fry up some balls of cornbread in a pot of oil over the campfire, Cajun style. His dogs were tied up to a nearby tree, and as they smelled the aroma of the crispy cornbread balls, the dogs began barking loudly, wanting to share in the bounty.” 

“The fisherman would pick up two or three morsels and throw them to the dogs, calling out: “HUSH puppies.” 

The Sanitary’s classic “Famous Tarheel Hushpuppies” recipe is readily available online. Ingredients include fine cornmeal, egg, buttermilk, salt, sugar and baking soda.

 

It’s also the only hushpuppies recipe contained in the Morehead City cookbook titled “A Little Taste of Heaven Since 1857,” which was compiled to celebrate the town’s sesquicentennial in 2007. That was probably by design. 

Author and historian Dr. David Cecelski of Durham, N.C., has roots in Carteret County. In one of his essays published by the North Carolina Folklife Institute, he told the world in 2010 that his grandmother always took the family to the Sanitary “for our birthdays and other special occasions.”

 “It was a little ritual. Mr. John Tunnell, who began working there in 1944 and knew everybody, always greeted us at the front door,” Dr. Ceceski said. “The waitresses, clad in all white, brought big pitchers of sweet tea and trays of hushpuppies.”

“I started taking my children to the Sanitary when they still had to sit in high chairs,” Dr Cecelski wrote. “We celebrated family birthdays there, lunched with elderly great-aunts there, and entertained out-of-town guests there. We ate lots of fried fish, bowls of clam chowder, and, always, hushpuppies.” 

“I have always thought that the Sanitary’s hushpuppies are the world’s best,” Dr. Cecelski said. “They’re just globs of deep-fried cornmeal and buttermilk seasoned with a little salt and sugar, but they’re culinary works of art: long, crisp, and flavorful, every one was a unique size and shape. For generations of beachgoers and locals alike, they define what a hushpuppy is.” 

Later, a new Cecelski family tradition was to pick up “a to-go bag of those hushpuppies” to make “a picnic meal out of them.” 

 

Another North Carolina community that is known for its hushpuppies is Calabash, located deep into Brunswick County.

 

“Calabash” comes from the French and Spanish words for “gourd,” which is the shape of the Calabash River, according to travel writer Besha Rodell, who came all the way from Melbourne, Australia, to find the fried seafood and hushpuppies of Calabash. 

Patricia Mitchell, a food critic based in Chatham, Va., said she journeyed to Calabash for a “endless basket of worthy-of-an-award hushpuppies.” 

Never fried in the same vat with the fish, “these light…puppies actually taste of cornmeal,” she said.

 

 

Veteran food writer David Holloway of Mobile, Ala., tackled the age-old question: “What’s the difference between a fritter and a hushpuppy?” He replied: “The only difference I could figure is where you receive your mail. One man’s fritter is another man’s hushpuppy.” Also in the family are corn dodgers, corn dabs and corn sticks, Holloway said. 

A quick check of the “Island Born and Bred” cookbook, compiled in 1987 by the Harkers Island Methodist Women, revealed seven separate recipes for hushpuppies, dodgers and cornbread dumplings. One for each day of the week. Try:

 

“Carol’s Hushpuppies” by Beverly Johnson

“Delicious Hushpuppies” by Bernice Lewis

“Mr. Bennie’s Hushpuppies” by Wanda Willis

“Shackleford Corn Balls” by Monroe Paylor

“Dodgers” by Leona Willis

“Dodgers or Pastry” by Lola Willis

“Cornbread Dumplings” by Nannie Rae Poole

 

 

In High Point, N.C., fans root for their hometown baseball team nicknamed the “Hushpuppies.” The club plays in the Central Division of the Old North State League, a summer wooden bat league for collegiate players. The team mascot is a tan-colored dog with a red collar.

 

The players’ jerseys depict a basket of hushpuppies on the front with sleeves that resemble old-timey red gingham tablecloths. Pretty classy.

 

Other teams in the Hushpuppies’ division are the: Clayton Clovers, Wake Forest Fungos, Oak City Gliders (based in Raleigh, known as the “City of Oaks,” and Reidsville Luckies.

 

Ready to mix up a batch of cheddar cheese straws?

Southern Living magazine’s Test Kitchen in Birmingham, Ala., says it takes 42 minutes to prepare and bake a batch of 10 dozen cheddar cheese straws…and they’re so easy to make.

“Every Southern food enthusiast has a go-to cheddar cheese straw recipe up his or her sleeve, and we’re making the case for this one. It’s savory and rich with the perfect amount of peppery kick. Ideal for a party snack, this recipe travels well,” said pasty chef Katie Rosenhouse.

 

“In fact, you’ll only need six ingredients that are probably already in your kitchen.” They are: 

Unsalted butter: Softened for easily mixing into a smooth dough. 

Sharp orange cheddar cheese: Shred your own cheese to avoid any anti-caking agents that are present in the pre-shredded version.

 

Salt: To enhance the cheesy flavor. 

Ground red pepper: Adds a little heat. 

Paprika: Adds an earthy warmth. 

All-purpose flour: The base of the dough.

 

For full instructions, access the Jan. 12, 2024, post at southernliving.com. One of the key tools needed is a cookie press with a star-shaped disk to shape the mixture into long ribbons.

 

Rosenhouse said: “The heavy dough can be difficult to pipe by hand, but you can also use a (canvas) pastry bag with a star tip as an alternative.” 

More than a dozen Southern Living readers shared their comments, and here are several noteworthy contributions: 

One person changed up the spices, using smoked paprika, Cajun spices and cayenne pepper. “We like it hot down here in Texas,” she said. 

“I tweaked it a bit by adding some garlic powder and onion powder in for some extra kick. We also did a batch adding Old Bay Seasoning; they were amazing, too.” 

“If a cookie press doesn’t work for you, you can roll them into small balls, and press a pecan half on top.”

 

“I substituted oat flour – this gave them a bit more crunch than the plain flour.” 

“I used extra sharp cheddar instead of sharp, because I wanted that extra bite.” 

Rosenhouse said any cheese straw leftovers can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to one week, or frozen for up to three months. Serve at room temperature or toast lightly in the oven for crisp, warm straws, she said. 

Many food lovers juggle the basic cheese straw recipe. Food writer John Martin Taylor, who is currently living in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, commented: “Truth be told, I like to tinker with cheese straws more than just about anything I cook.

 

“Sometimes, I use that egg yolk and sometimes I don’t. I’ve tried flavoring them with anchovies, red pepper paste, Vietnamese chile paste with garlic as well as a variety of cheeses.” 

Lately, Taylor said he has been adding blue cheese to the mix, but “it should be fairly dry and crumbly, not creamy.” 

Writing for Gun & Garden magazine, Francine Markoukian interviewed Brian Noyes, founder of Red Truck Bakery in Warrenton, Va., about his cheese straws recipe that combine elements from two separate household kitchens – drawing from a grandmother and an aunt, both of whom lived in North Carolina.

“I’ve combined my two family versions into a long, hard cracker straw with a good bit of heat, a hearty hit of three cheeses and a nice rosemary finish.” Noyes said. 

In addition to a quarter-pound of shredded sharp orange cheddar, he adds a quarter-pound of shredded white cheese (equal parts Gruyère and Parmigiano Reggiano).

 

A little research shows that Gruyère is classified as a hard Swiss-type cheese; sweet but slightly salty. Parmigiano-Reggiano is described as a hard, dry cheese made from skimmed or partially skimmed cow's milk. It has a hard pale-golden rind and a straw-colored interior with a rich, sharp flavor.

 

Noyes’ cheese straws recipe is readily available online.