Charles "Blackie" Blockston
3rd Engineer
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Memberships:
AMMV JWB Chapter Project Liberty Ship
1940 - Attended Hoffman Island School.
1942 - Blackie was sailing as an oiler on the
On 27 June the CARLTON again left Reyjavik for Murmansk, this time in Convoy PQ-17. On July 5 the CARLTON was torpedoed and sunk by U88. Blackie's USCG Certificate of Discharge states: "Place of Discharge At Sea (torpedoed)."
Two men were killed in the explosion and the rest abandoned ship, some in lifeboats, others on rafts. The following day, German aircraft equipped with floats landed alongside and took off all the men who were on the on the rafts. The lifeboats had only had sails and they headed south. After eight days they met another German U-boat. This captain refilled their water barrel, gave them food and offered medical assistance.
After 19 days and covering about 600 miles in an open lifeboat, they were discovered by two Norwegian fishermen, a father and son, out of Tufjord, near Hammerfest. These fishermen towed the CARLTON's survivors to Tufjord, a little fishing village of about 300 people.
As the fisherman's wife was preparing a fish dinner for them, the German Army arrived, captured them, and took them off to a POW camp in Norway. On August 16 they were loaded aboard the WURI, a Dutch ship taken over by the Germans and being used as a troop transport.
While sailing through the Skagerrack between Norway and Denmark, the WURI hit a British mine and sank. During this sinking and subsequent rescue, the CARLTON's crew members were later credited with the saving of "hundreds of lives among the 1000 German troops on board." They eventually wound up in the German POW camp, Milag Nord Mirag, near Hamburg.
1945 - After 32 months in captivity, Blackie was released from POW camp on February 28 and repatriated back to the USA. Back home he attended Fort Trumbull School, graduating as a marine engineer. Blackie went back to sea, sailing as first and third assistant engineer during the Korean Conflict and the Vietnam War.
1982 - Blackie retired after forty years at sea.
1982 - He joined Project Liberty Ship and has been working on the restoration of the S.S. JOHN W. BROWN since then.
1990 - The Russian government presented the Murmansk Medal to the many allied seamen who sailed in the convoys to Murmansk. At the award ceremony, Blackie was singled out as one who, while never completing a full trip, had made a number of half trips.
1997 - In July, Blackie flew to Norway and took a boat to Tufjord. There are only 20 people living there now. In trying to locate the two fishermen who had rescued the crew of the CARLTON, he found that the father had died a few years ago. However, the son, Otto Josefsen, was living in another village about 40 miles away. So Blackie traveled to the village of Hammerfest. There he found Otto who, at 74, is still a fisherman. Otto and his friends took Blackie out fishing. They then cooked and ate the meal that the Germans had interrupted exactly 55 years previously. Blackie stayed with Otto and his friends for three or four days. They do not speak English. Blackie does not speak Norwegian. They all got along fine.
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