I am trying to fill in missing pieces of my father’s
family and leave this for my sons and grandson.
My grandfather James Brown MacKay was born in Lybster,
Scotland and went to sea at a young age - that’s what he told me. He moved to
Glasgow and operated a marine business with his brothers, and there must have
been a family dispute as one brother took off and jumped ship in New Brunswick.
The other I think I was told moved to Australia. My grandfather moved the
family to Liverpool I would guess around 1930 and to my knowledge he only
worked for Elder Dempster Shipping and was an engineer on the MV Apapa for many
years. He later served in a land based position with Elder Dempster in
Liverpool until he retired around 1960.
Grandad MacKay was not very talkative, and I learned
after he died that during WWII he had been part of a salvage recovery team
before the US entered the war. Convoy ships torpedoed by the Germans were
somehow located and made “seaworthy” and sailed back to the UK to be patched up
and sail again. I think his knowledge of the shipping lanes from England to
West Africa were a key to his being assigned to the “Wavy Navy” and if anyone
has any tidbits of information I would be very grateful.
Sincerely,
Bruce A MacKay
Sonoma, CA, USA=
