Snippet: SS Magician
Not every magician of the Second World War performed on a stage. One was a 5,000-ton merchant steamship.
Built in 1925, SS Magician belonged to Liverpool’s Harrison Line, a shipping company whose vessels traditionally bore the names of trades and professions. Other ships included Musician, Philosopher and Inventor.
SS Magician
(Source: Harrison Line)
In January 1941, as stage magician Jasper Maskelyne sailed from Liverpool aboard RMS Samaria, bound for Egypt and his own wartime adventures, he passed SS Magician at anchor in the docks. Jasper recognised the ship bearing the name of his profession.
Jasper Maskelyne in wartime Cairo, Egypt
(Source: wikicommons)
Three months later, Magician was crossing the Atlantic with Convoy SC 26, carrying steel and timber. The convoy came under sustained attack from German U-boats, losing ten of its 23 merchant ships. Magician, carrying the convoy commodore, escaped.
Three years later, her luck ran out. On 14 April 1944, while returning from the West Indies, Magician ran aground near Peterhead, Scotland.
By the following morning, the stricken vessel was sounding SOS signals on her siren and had developed a dangerous list. In dense fog, the Peterhead lifeboat Julia Park Barry of Glasgow located the ship and rescued all 80 crew members.
The Magician was lost, but everyone aboard survived. Her final escape owed nothing to illusion and everything to the courage of the lifeboat crew.
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