We have already referred to the mobilisation on the outbreak of war of a very large proportion of the Company’s navigating officers, and it is estimated that at least 1,500 sailors, firemen, and stewards joined the colours, of whom 88 were killed or drowned. Nor was the clerical staff behind them in its eagerness to serve the country in a combatant capacity. When a brigade of business men was formed in Liverpool, in 1914, not less than 120 Cunarders from the Liverpool staffs enlisted on the first day, while from the clerical staffs alone of the principal Cunard Offices in Great Britain, 387 men joined the Army, besides 65 who joined from the Canadian and American Offices—a total of 452. Of these 53 lost their lives in the service of their country, while a large proportion received more or less serious wounds, several being permanently disabled.

Many distinctions and honours were gained both on the field of battle and at sea, to be engraved upon the Company’s records as one of their proudest trophies. They include a Victoria Cross and, in numerous cases, the D.S.O., D.S.C., M.C., M.M., etc. Various members of the staff have received other British, and also French, Belgian, Russian and United States, decorations and medals.

Such then in brief were the war activities of one of our chief Mercantile Marine Companies, and it is surely a record of which the whole Empire, not less than every member and employee of the Cunard Company itself, may well be proud. In the study of it we have perhaps been able to perceive, as in a wider survey of a larger number of units might have been less possible, something of the peculiar genius for organisation and adaptation that, in spite of so much ignorant criticism, our race possesses. It is at any rate an indication that the sea instinct that has been our inheritance for so many centuries is as strong to-day as ever, and a happy augury for the future of a country, whose very breath of life depends upon its maintenance of Admiralty, in the widest sense of the word.

Thos. Forman & Sons, Printers,
Nottingham, Liverpool, London

MAP SHEWING PRINCIPAL ROUTES SET BY CUNARD SHIPS DURING THE WAR

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Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced.