THE sun from the sea first touches Bermuda at St. David's Head, the easternmost part of the island. There, under the protective guns of an old battery, the Bermuda Government has erected a monument to local inhabitants lost at sea.

A purpose of such a monument is to remind us of the lives that the great forces of nature or the destructive hand of man interrupted irrevocably and whose only grave is that of the sea.

There are those who go down through foolishness, who test the mighty ocean with arrogance or inadequate implements. Most, however, meet their end while undertaking the duties of the mariner on a day that went wrong.

Others reach an uninvited but honourable fate, as did five Bermudians whose lives were literally torpedoed in the line of military duties. They are recorded in Bermuda's Roll of Honour of those killed in action in the World War of 1939-45 and honoured annually on Remembrance Day.

Three of these men served in the Merchant Marine, the movers of essential cargoes who suffered considerable losses through U-boat attacks. Another served in one of His Majesty's warships and the last was coming home when his ship was sunk. Perhaps their names will be recorded along with the civilian losses at the St. David's monument.

Douglas William Howard Hutchings was lost on January 16, 1941. He was an oiler, whose first job was in the engine room of the Queen of Bermuda, but had transferred to another vessel. At the time of his death, Queen of Bermuda was on duty in the Falkland Islands far to the south. According Billy McGee, who had an excellent web site on the Merchant Navy, there were two British vessels sunk on January 16, 1941, the Zealandic and the Oropesa.

Both were attacked off Rockall, some 300 miles from Iceland and Ireland on the route from the North Sea to the Atlantic. The cargo ship Zealandic was lost with all hands and Oropesa, a passenger liner, lost 105 crew and passengers, with 143 being rescued.

Given that he was originally on a passenger liner, it is possible that Hutchings was lost on the Oropesa. It was sunk by U-96, a boat familiar to most through its incarnation as the lead actor in the outstanding film, Das Boot. Of the 40,000 mariners of the U-boat fleets, 30,000 did not return from sea.

Howard Sinclair Burgess was a fireman and trimmer and with 28 others on the Henri Mory was lost on April 26, 1941. The Henri Mory had sailed with a cargo of iron ore from Pepel and Freetown in Sierra Leone for Barrow in Scotland. One source suggests that the ship came to Bermuda and it is possible that Burgess joined the vessel and his fate here. The Henri Mory had left Convoy SL-68 and was travelling independently when the ship was torpedoed by U-110 in the North Atlantic. The U-110 had a very short career of only two sailings and was sunk a few weeks after the Henri Mory went down. The boat became famous for it remained afloat long enough for the British to board it and remove an Enigma code machine and many secret documents.

Lieut. Cecil John Greenway Wright was serving in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve on HMS Dunedin when the vessel was torpedoed on November 24, 1941. He was one of the 419 men lost, only 67 of the crew surviving.

In 1940, Dunedin had been posted to the America and West Indies Station at Bermuda and thereafter was on the South Atlantic Station. While pursuing enemy surface ships in those waters, the Dunedin was sent to an oceanic grave by U-124, halfway between Sierre Leone and Brazil.

Noel Lumley Meyer was returning to Bermuda via Canada after service with the Royal Air Force. He was travelling on the Lady Hawkins, one of the famous "Lady Boats" that had served Bermuda and the West Indies for several decades.

The ship was torpedoed on January 19, 1942 south of Boston by U-66 under the command of Richard Zapp, with the loss of 255 souls. Meyer was last seen helping survivors into lifeboats, 71 persons later being rescued. The USS Buckley sank the U-66 by ramming on May 6, 1944.

Alfred David Drewsbury Drew remains an enigmatic merchant mariner. While he is recorded on the Bermuda Roll of Honour, neither his date nor place of death is at present known. At the beginning of the Second World War in 1939, he was a young man of 20 years. It is said that he volunteered for convoy service to Britain and was lost when his ship was torpedoed. His name is not recorded on the lists of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

This suggests that he died on his first voyage, before his name could be recorded officially as a member of his ship's crew. Further research may finally complete the story of this young Bermudian lost at sea in the line of duty.

LIKE a stone thrown into the sea, a sinking vessel creates but a few ripples that are soon lost to sight, as is the ship itself. The loss of its crew makes destructive emotional waves that resound down through the years in the lives and memory of family and friends left behind.

Memory itself cannot escape the shipwreck of time, unless we hold in firm in archival records and built monuments. We make these memory banks to respect the dead and honour their contributions to the present, especially those who gave their lives in the line of duty.

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Dr. Edward Harris, MBE, JP, FSA, Bermudian, is the Executive Director of the Bermuda Maritime Museum. The views expressed here are his opinion and not necessarily those of the trustees or staff of the Museum. Comments can be sent to drharrislogic.bm, to PO Box MA 133, Sandys MABX, or by telephone at 734-1298.