September 3, 1939: The T.S.S. Athenia, a merchant vessel with no armaments, no escort, and over 1400 souls on board, is 250 miles off the coast of Ireland, bound for Montreal. At around 7.45pm, barely 8 hours after Britain had declared war, she is torpedoed by a German U-boat and becomes the first merchant ship to go down, taking over a hundred of her passengers with her.

December 14, 1939: Three months later, the British tanker Inverlane is mined in the North Sea. Among the lives lost is Assistant Cook Leslie Francis Yates, the first known New Zealand seafarer to lose his life due to enemy action during the war.

Leslie was from Napier. He was the son of Francis Charles Leigh Yates and Ethel Yates and only 24 years old when the Inverlane was lost.

Over the course of the war, thousands of merchant ships and seafarers would be lost, including at least 160 New Zealanders. The true number may never be known, but more names are being added to the Roll of Honour as they come to light.

Finding them can be a challenge. Records are often scattered and incomplete and must be patched together. Seafarers were, unsurprisingly, a highly mobile lot. Most served on multiple ships, and those ships were from many different countries. During the Second World War, kiwi seafarers served on ships from New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, Norway, Panama, the Netherlands, and many more.

Some were young. Some were old. The names on the Roll of Honour range from just 15 to their mid-60s. Most, like Leslie Yates, were just trying to do their job.

The importance of that job cannot be overstated. Not only did they transport troops and supplies essential for the war effort, they also carried critical civilian cargo, refugees, prisoners of war and the wounded through some of the most dangerous waters in the world. They served as hospital ships, supported the Normandy landings, evacuated the beaches of Dunkirk, supplied the Soviet Union, kept the transatlantic lifeline alive, and maintained the vital links connecting the world’s nations, including New Zealand, to each other.

Without the Merchant Navy, things may have turned out very differently, and this often came at tremendous cost in lives as well as ships.

Yet despite the tremendous sacrifices that they made, the contribution of our seafarers has often been overlooked and under-recognised. Merchant Navy Day was not established in New Zealand until 2010. It is now commemorated every year on September 3, the anniversary of the loss of the Athenia.

Leslie Yates’ name is on the 58^th panel of the Merchant Navy Memorial at Tower Hill in London. This extraordinary memorial contains the names of more than twenty-four thousand seafarers who were lost during the Second World War. Even this is only a fraction of the overall number.

In New Zealand, Leslie’s name is recorded on the Roll of Honour, in the Auckland War Memorial Museum’s Hall of Memories, and the Online Cenotaph.

On September 3, and every day, we should say thank you to Leslie his fellow seafarers, and we should remember them.

Read more Cenotaph Stories about New Zealand’s Merchant Navy.