Forgotten the SL 125? Yes, like a multitude of other more or less important events that took place between 1939 and 1945, the epic of the convoy has well and truly disappeared into the dustbin of history. Time passes, the actors disappear and the memory of their relatives and descendants fades little by little. Only historians can now unearth a detail to remind us of the strength and importance of the past.
It was thanks to the tenacity of one of them, Oscar Fumero, that the SL 125 tragedy made the headlines in Spain and Scotland on 20 May 2022. On that day, the family of a Scottish serviceman killed in the convoy attack was finally able to visit his grave, 80 years after the event. John Lee, a native of Glasgow, served as a gunner in the Royal Artillery Marine Regiment. Just 22 years old, he was on board the French liner President Doumer, which had been requisitioned in 1940 and used to transport troops. From eyewitness accounts in the archives, Oscar Fumero was able to determine that during the evacuation of the ship John refused to get into the lifeboats to make room for the other sailors but misjudged the distance when he jumped and was crushed between the lifeboat and the ship. His body was one of the few found after the disaster. He washed up on the beach of Las Goteras in La Palma in the Canary Islands in March 1943, five months after his death. The inhabitants of this corner of the east coast of the Gran Canaria gave the unfortunate man a burial. In 1951, for 100 pesetas, the British Consulate bought the corner of the Villa de Mazo cemetery where his body was buried, thus becoming “British land”. Over the years, several tributes have even been paid to the soldier, most recently in 2018 to mark the 75th anniversary of the discovery of his body. But until then, no one knew who his descendants were or where they were. Oscar Fumero found them with the help of the British Consulate General. « I wanted to put a face on John, to know what ship he was on, to meet his family, so I kept looking.It was hours, days, months of searching, until I found in a forum of fallen soldiers, the family tombstone that John’s father erected in his memory. In it, in addition to the soldier’s data, were the dates that his parents, Martha and Henry, had died, and that of his sister Agnes, who had died when she was just 16 years old. I brought this to the attention of the consul Charmaine Arbouin, and from then on everything was easier ».
John’s family now consists only of his niece, Mary Hastie, 75, who travelled from Bearsden, East Dunbartonshire: « I found it very emotional, as I have found everything that I have got to know about my uncle’s story.I wasn’t born till after the war and it was not something that was spoken about in my home.Both my parents died comparatively young and I thought that I would never find out the real story or anything about which island John was buried on.So, it was a surprise when I when I was contacted by a distant and unknown relative telling me the Consul’s office in Spain and was looking for me. That was when I started getting details of where the grave was and I felt I had to come over to La Palma as I am the last surviving member of the Lee family ».
On this 20th of May 2022, Goretti Perez Corujo, Mayor of Villa de Mazo, said: « John Lee has ended up being part of the history of Villa de Mazo, becoming one of the well-known and beloved tenants of the San Blas cemetery. The way in which he appeared on the beach, mutilated, caused an even greater sorrow to the inhabitants of our municipality. It is really touching and beautiful that since then his grave is always surrounded by flowers ».
To put flowers on her great-uncle’s grave, Mary brought a giant ceramic poppy from England from the Tower of London moat exhibition in 2014. It now hangs on the wall behind the grave of John, who is no longer an ‘unknown soldier’…
