Letters

Pacific Steam Navigation Co. ship Esmeralda was stopped by the Moewe

Dear Mac,

If I may call you that. I am a big fan of your site and would like to thank you for your efforts, but that's not why I'm writing. The other day I was in the Ironmongers' Hall, the Ironmongers being one of the medieval livery companies of London. In a display cabinet I spotted the following. Now bear with me here, because all I did was hurriedly jot down some notes so I may not have got it word for word, but broadly speaking the citation went like this.

On the 10th March 1917, the Pacific Steam Navigation Co. ship Esmeralda was stopped by the Moewe.  The boarding officer Lt. Pohlmann told Captain Maken that he could take one item from the ship as a souvenir, so he chose the 1878 silver inkstand.  In 1957 aged 93, Captain Maken donated the inkstand to the Ironmongers' Hall, Livery Co. in Aldersgate, London as "a souvenir of a past when there still remained some chivalry in warfare."

Any inaccuracies in that are probably mine.

Yours sincerely,
John Random


Dear John,
 
I am delighted with your message, it is quite wonderful when someone such as your good self takes the time and trouble to contact me with another small piece of the jigsaw that throws new light on one of the stories I have written about.

AHOY is very efficiently put together and run by my very good freiend and Webmaster, Terry Kearns in Atlanta, Georgia. I do the research and all the writing, and Terry converts my ramblings into the site that faces the world of the Internet. Without Terry and his expertise, our joint work would not see the light of day.

John, I believe the ship you have found at the Ironmonger's Hall is the Esmeraldas, it has an s at the end of its name.
 
But, what an interesting post script about one of Moewe's many victims, Terry will no doubt publish your letter to me, and add this information to the Moewe story which is included on AHOY at our URL:
http://ahoy.tk-jk.net/MaraudersWW1/Moewe.html at 12 paragraphs from the bottom of this story.

Again, our thanks John, one of the joys for both Terry and myself is the bringing together diverse people around the world on the Net through our joint efforts.

Best regards from us both.

Mac.


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