My uncle's ship was the Avila Star, which sailed between South America and England, and was sunk by a U-boat. I once looked him up on the Merchant Navy memorial near Tower Bridge. There are 35,000 names, or thereabouts, but I was fortunate enough to find his ship on only the third bronze plaque, out of literally hundreds.
Name Avila Star
Type: Steam passenger ship
Tonnage 14,443 tons
Completed 1927 - John Brown & Co Ltd, Clydebank
Owner Blue Star Line Ltd, London
Homeport London
Date of attack 6 Jul 1942
Nationality:
British
Fate Sunk by
U-201 (
Adalbert Schnee)
Position 38° 04'N, 22° 48'W - Grid CF 4953
Complement 196 (59 dead and 137 survivors).
Convoy
Route Buenos Aires - Freetown (28 Jun) - Liverpool
Cargo 5659 tons of frozen meat
History Completed in March 1927 as
Avila 1929 renamed
Avila Star. 1935 lengthened.
Notes on event
At 00.36 hours on 6 July 1942 the unescorted
Avila Star (Master John Fisher) was hit on the starboard side by two G7e torpedoes from
U-201 90 miles east of San Miguel, Azores. The ship had been chased since 5 hours and only sank capsizing to starboard one hour after being hit amidships by a coup de grâce at 00.58 hours. A first coup de grâce fired at 00.54 hours had been a dud. The master, nine crew members, one gunner and eleven passengers were lost, most of them died when the third torpedo detonated beneath a lifeboat that was being lowered. 20 crew members and three passengers went missing in a lifeboat that was never found. 96 crew members, five gunners and eleven passengers were picked up from three lifeboats on 7/8 July by the Portuguese destroyer
Lima (D 333) (Rodriguez) and taken to Ponta Delgada, Azores where one crew member died in a hospital. Another lifeboat with 34 crew members and five passengers was not located until 25 July, after eight crew members and two passengers died of wounds or exposure. The 29 survivors were picked up by the Portuguese sloop
Pedro Nunes (A 528) which was searching for the boat since it had been spotted by Portuguese aircraft two days earlier and landed them at Lisbon the next day, but one crew member died aboard shortly after being rescued and two others after reaching a hospital in Lisbon.
Edit: meant to mention the above info came from this site
https://uboat.net/allies/merchants/ships/1902.html