Third Engineer Officer Joseph Johnson

Third Engineer Officer Joseph Johnson, Merchant Navy. He was lost at sea on 12th September 1940 aboard the S.S. “Benavon”, aged 26. He was the son of James and Thomasina Johnson of Spittal, Berwick-upon-Tweed and is commemorated on the Tower Hill Memorial, London. The ship had been built at Lithgows of Glasgow in 1930 and was of 5,800 tons. On a voyage from Hong Kong to the U.K. via South Africa she was sunk by the German commerce raider ” Pinguin ” and 23 of her 48 crew were killed. The German ship was herself sunk by H.M.S. “Cornwall” on 8th May 1941 with heavy loss of life including prisoners she had picked up.