Heroes and Rebel in the Family Tree--Herbert Alonzo Strowger and the troubled crewmen.
SATURDAY— MARCH 1932
FIGHT IN SHIP AT ELLESMERE PORT
CAPTAIN
KNOCKED DOWN
SPANNER THREAT
TO OFFICERS
STRUGGLE ON
BRIDGE
Herbert Lawn, fireman, and Jacob Tattersall, greaser, in s.s.
Shirban, [an oil tanker] were accused at Ellesmere Port today of
unlawfully attacking and impeding the captain and assaulting the chief engineer
and chief officer. They are also accused of disobeying lawful commands on the
ship.
The two men pleaded not guilty to all charges with the
exception of the one relating to the assaulting of the Chief Officer, to which
they pleaded they were under great provocation.
According to George
Strong, chief engineer on s.s. Shirban, a benzine vessel laid up at Stanlow Oil
Dock, Ellesmere Port, at 20.30 last night while in his room he heard an
argument going on in the room of the fourth engineer.
George Strong went out saw Lawn and Tattersall objecting to
their watch, when he inquired the cause of the trouble.
“KNOCKED DOWN’
He told them to go away, whereupon one started to take off
his coat to fight. The fourth engineer intervened, and he went for the captain to
have them stopped.
Strong, the captain, and the chief officer approached Lawn,
who made a lunge at the chief officer while Tattersall went for the captain.
The chief officer and the captain were knocked down, and
Strong went to the aide of the captain and pulled Tattersall from him.
Strong was also knocked down and banged against the hatch,
his wrist being hurt. Lawn said he
objected to the uncivil way which the witness bullied him by telling him “to
beat it” when he asked him a civil question.
Then Dodds Winter, chief officer, who had a bandage over one of his
eyes, said without any provocation Lawn and Tattersall struck at him.
While he was on the floor one of them put his thumb on his
(Dodd’s) eye which caused him great pain.
Lawn admitted picking up a rope to protect himself but denied
that he provoked the men.
Strowger went to the scene of the yelling, calling for chief officer on duty. He saw Lawn
attack the chief officer without a word being spoken.
Strowger said that he went aft for a bandage to make Lawn go
forward on his own responsibility, but they opened an attack and Tattersall
went for him (the captain).
The Chief Engineer
drove them off but Tattersall turned on him (the engineer). The Captain then
went to the help of his engineer who was on the deck.
In the general melee the captain found himself alone with
Lawn and Tattersall and they both advanced towards him with curses, taking
their belts and saying that they would finish him. Witness had finger injured and
received abrasions the face. The two men then came the bridge with spanners in
their hands.
Seeing that they had spanners, he ordered the men to put them
down. Lawn threw his overboard insisted that Tattersall should do the same, but
he deliberately refused and maintained a threatening manner. At that moment the
police came on board.
Lawn denied making an attack with a spanner all. He said he
was in the Army during the war, going from Mons to the Marne He would not do to
a German what it had been stated he had done to his superior officers.
He admitted, however, that he did attack the Chief Engineer
in self-defence and said he was entirely responsible for the trouble on board.
A dock policeman described the threatening attitude of both men
when he went on board. He alleged that Tattersall held a spanner high his hand
in an attitude ready to hit the captain on the head.
He took the spanner from otherwise there was no doubt that
the captain would have received the full force of a blow. If the spanner had been thrown about and had
fallen on the deck a spark would have been sufficient to ignite the fumes, and
blow up, only the ship, but all the surrounding petrol installation.
Witness that Tattersall told him later that his only regret was
that had not “done him in before police arrived.” He said was determined to do
it later on.
Lawn and Tattersall contended that the chief engineer was for
the trouble..
The men were each fined 40s. in respect of the three cases of
assault and fined 10s each in the two cases of disobedience.
The captain said he would not have the men on board again as
they were dangerous.
Liverpool Journal of
Commerce - Saturday 19 March 1932
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