ID=25710 Name=Junghans, Friedrich

[Dorsetshire Son]

Friedrich's ID tag is on display in the Merseyside Maritime Museum, in Liverpool UK.

[t-geronimo]

Thank you very much. 

[Dorsetshire Son]

Hello there,

My name is Peter Higgins. My father (who passed away in 2013 aged 93) Was Stanley A Higgins who was a crewman aboard HMS Dorsetshire at the time of the Bismarck action.

Although my father was a stoker in the Dorsetshire's boiler rooms, he was off watch and a member of a damage control party during the Bismarck's final battle. As the battle progressed dad was given permission from the team leader to go "up " and find out what was happening during the battle, He witnessed part of the gunfight and saw the smoke shrouded wreck of the Bismarck being pummelled. After the conclusion of the battle he was released from damage control and was "off watch", when a call went out for "all available hands" to assist in hauling aboard the survivors from the freezing Atlantic.

Dad witnessed the terrible life or death struggle of the oil soaked survivors, and indeed assisted in hauling a few aboard, one of whom (Friedrich Junghans) gave dad his ID tag, I have since discovered that Friedrich served in "Turret Dora" the aftmost turret aboard Bismarck.

Dad kept this tag long after the war, and in 1973 was hoping to reunite it with Friedrich at the first Bismarck/Dorsetshire survivors reunion in Hamburg, Germany. Unfortunately he was informed by the Bismarck survivors association that Friedrich had remained in canada after the war and had passed away a short while before the planned reunion.

Dad donated the ID tag (together with a List of Bismarck Survivors signatures (From 1973) & his own oil soaked life belt from when he survived the sinking of the Dorsetshire in the Indian ocean in 1942) to the "Merseyside Maritime Museum" in Liverpool UK, where they are both still on display to this day.

As a final part of this tale, I spent a number of years trying to track down any of Friedrich's relatives in Canada/US and just last year almost accidentally bumped into a great grandaughter of Friedrich's on the internet (on an amateur artists website of all places), and informed her of her G-Grandfather's ID tag, and as far as I'm aware she is now in the process of reclaiming it from the museum for her family.

Thanks for the great website, a REALLY interesting read, and best of luck for the future.

[Urs Heßling]

hi,
a real sea story

greetings, Urs

[Darius]

Hello Peter,

thank you for sharing your story.




Darius