MONK Robert Barnabas

Cadet Apprentice Robert Barnabas Monk Merchant Navy

1939-45 Star. War Medal 1939-45.

The Man Robert Barnabas Monk was born in Hackney, London during the third quarter of 1924, son of Robert Joseph, a Motor Mechanic and veteran of The Great War and Elsie May nee Hammond. He was one of four children, Mary Elizabeth born in 1922 and Barbara Elsie 1927 and Peter Edmund 1930.

The 1939 Register shows the family living at 56 Perth Road, Wood Green but at some time following this they fmoved to 2 Upper Hill Street, Leamington Spa, possibly to avoid air raids and as Robert senior had lived there earlier in his life.

Following the outbreak of World War II on 3rd September 1939 Robert was aged only 15 and too young to enlist, but he did join the Merchant Navy as a Cadet and Apprentice in 1940, gaining his bronze Royal Life Saving Society medallion in September. During the war, the minimum age for joining the British Merchant Navy was 16 years old for deck hands and catering staff.

He saw two years’ service and in June 1942 was in the Motor Vessel ‘King Lud’, a 5,224 gross ton motor cargo ship built in 1928, owned by King Line, an operator of merchant ships based in London. She was carrying military personnel and government supplies and on route from New York to Bombay, under her Master Benjamin Roderick Evans.

On 8th June 1942 in the Mozambique Channel (the area of sea between mainland Africa and Madagascar), King Lud was torpedoed by the Japanese submarine l-10. All hands were lost including three 17-year-old cadets and apprentices, one of whom was Robert. Of the 20 ships owned by King Line at the start of the war, 14 were lost during the war.

Robert’s body was never recovered and he is commemorated on the Merchant Seamen’s Memorial in Tower Hill, London and on the Royal Leamington Spa War Memorial where he lived before the war.

Robert was posthumously awarded the 1939-45 Star and War Medal 1939-45 which were sent to his family at 2a Beauchamp Avenue, Leamington Spa.

Medal Award Certificate showing the posthumous award of the 1939-45 Star and War Medal 1939-45.

The Story The medals awarded to Robert Barnabas Monk and his father, Robert Joseph were acquired from a friend in the Birmingham Medal Society and of great interest as both men had resided in Leamington Spa. Of particular interest though was the fact that Robert Barnabas had sadly been killed in action aged just 17 during World War II and is named on the town’s war memorial.

With the medals came the WWII medal award certificate and some research on both men which, supplemented by ancestry enabled brief biographies to be completed, together with photographs of where they had lived in Leamington.

An unusual group, especially as Robert was one of only three 17-year-old Apprentices killed aboard the Merchant Ship Ling Lud sunk by a Japanese submarine in the Mozambique Channel.