A dive at Portsmouth today presented the opportunity to clean up the newer of the two anchors that lie offshore. Accumulations of mussels and corrosion were vigorously removed, revealing the well-known swastika - and on the other fluke - the name of a maker. That name is still a little unclear, but the location of manufacture can now clearly be identified as Sunderland, a major ship-building port in NE England. So, did the Germans have merchant ships built in England before the war? Or, is the swastika a good-luck symbol? The jury's still out. If you're in the water at Portsmouth soon, go look at the maker's name and see if you can make it out clearly. It certainly ends with Co Ltd, so that supports the English origins.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Anchor cleaning quite revealing..
A dive at Portsmouth today presented the opportunity to clean up the newer of the two anchors that lie offshore. Accumulations of mussels and corrosion were vigorously removed, revealing the well-known swastika - and on the other fluke - the name of a maker. That name is still a little unclear, but the location of manufacture can now clearly be identified as Sunderland, a major ship-building port in NE England. So, did the Germans have merchant ships built in England before the war? Or, is the swastika a good-luck symbol? The jury's still out. If you're in the water at Portsmouth soon, go look at the maker's name and see if you can make it out clearly. It certainly ends with Co Ltd, so that supports the English origins.
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1 comment:
Byers is the manufacturer of this anchor.
And this is not the Swastika: the symbol was used as a good-luck symbol, especially for seafarers, for thousands of years.
The nazis just adopted that symbol, they did not create it.
Mr.Byer was passionate about history, and adopted the old symbol as a family crest, and therefore put it on all the anchors he built.Until the second world war that is, where the symbol became associated with nazis.
You can find info and pics at:
http://www.searlecanada.org/sunderland/sunderland211.html#byers2
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