Senior Ordinary Seaman Peter SHAND
MV San Arcadio Merchant Marine

Date of birth: 15th November 1921
Date of death: 31st January 1942

Killed in action aged 20
Commemorated on the Tower Hill Memorial in London Panel 91
Peter Shand was born at Inveravon on the 15th of November 1921 the son of Mr and Mrs W. Shand of Priestfield, Knockando. He was the husband of Hilda Annie "Nan" Shand of Macallan Distillery Cottage, Craigellachie, and later of Netherbrae in Aberdeenshire. He left a young son. He worked as a general labourer before volunteering for service with the Merchant Marine.

The MV San Arcadio was a motor tanker of 7,419 tons and had sailed from Houston in Texas under the command of Master Walter Frederick Flynn with a cargo of 6,600 tons of gas oil and 3,300 tons of lubricating oil bound for Merseyside via Halifax; she was unescorted.

At 16.45 on the 31st of January 1942, while sailing to the north of Bermuda, she was hit by two torpedoes fired by the U Boat U-107 under the command of Kapitainleutnant Harald Gelhaus. She was set on fire by the explosion and at 18.51 she was hit again by a shot into the engine room when she broke in two. U-107 surfaced and fired a further 24 shots from her deck gun at the stern without registering a hit. She then submerged and left the area. There were only eight survivors from the San Arcadio out of a crew of fifty. These men were picked up by a Mariner flying boat of the United States Navy and taken to Bermuda.

Knockando

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