#OnThisDay 1942 Assistant Cook Thomas FitzGerald, 17, from Kilkenny & Sailor Robert Rankin, 21, from Dublin perished along with all 49 crew of the Merchant Navy ship SS Empire Prairie when it was sank by the German sub U-654 500 miles north east of Bermuda. The ship, en route from Halifax to South Africa, was hit with one of two torpedoes and broke in half. Some crew survived the initial blast but died in the frigid Atlantic waters.
The Irish at War 