Built to the order of the Admiralty by Scott & Son of Bowling (Yard No.275) and launched as the John Langshaw on 20th March 1919 she was a Strath class steel steam trawler with dimensions of 115.8′ x 22.2′ x 12.2′ and a tonnage of 199.8 gross tons, 87 net tons. She was powered by a triple expansion steam engine by Messers. W H Allen of Bedford developing 75 nominal horse power. Her official number was 143257.
SS William Griffen underway
The picture above is of the Strath class trawler William Griffen also built by Scott & Son of Bowling and completed in 1918 (Yard No 272).
She was completed too late for action in World War I and was sold to the Mr R W Crawford of Scarborough in 1919 and then to Crawford Fishing Company Ltd who re-named her Ethel Crawford and registered her in Fleetwood (FD 404) in 1922. She spent the remainder of her life working as a commercial trawler, changing hands in 1924 and 1932 between Aberdeen owners registered as A36, finally being sold to the Ardrossan Trawling Co. Ltd in 1941. Her official number was 143257.
It was under this ownership that the Ethel Crawford, manned by her crew of ten, was working south west of Ailsa Craig on 20th April 1945. Two days previously the German mine layer U-218 had entered the Clyde and laid a pattern of 15 mines in the channel to the west of Ailsa Craig.
The exact circumstances of her loss are unclear, but we have to assume that she either hit or snagged one of the mines with her nets, resulting in the loss of the vessel and her crew.
There is a ironic twist to this story that was to see the U-218 return to the Clyde shortly after the German surrender. She arrived in early June 1945 where she was interned in Loch Ryan until later that year when she, along with around 115 others U-boats, were towed off the north west coast of Ireland and scuttled as part of Operation Deadlight. U-218 sank to her watery grave on 4th December 1945 and now lies approximately 142 km west of the Ethel Crawford, off Malin Head. Both wrecks are intact and periodically visited by divers.
U-218 ( Mallman Showell)
The wreck in position 55° 13.058’N, 05° 15.057’W oriented 140/320 degrees while not positively identified as the Ethel Crawford is indeed the remains of a trawler in a number of sections.
The two main sections are focsle and the stern section from boiler to rudder which sits upright. The focsle is lying on its starboard side and is covered in a net which rises around 2 metres from the seabed. Seabed depths around the wreck are 49-50 metres, the wreck rises around 3-4 metres at maximum.
Tower Hill Memorial – Ethel Crawford
For some reason there is one member of the crew ( Skipper Arthur MIddleton Scales of Edinburgh) missing from the memorial plaque at Tower Hill.
