John Darrell Boyd – Elegy on an Deceased Airman

John Darrell Boyd (related to us through the Doppings family of Derrycassin) lost his life on the SS Almeda Star en routh to Trinidad on 17th of January 1941. The ship was sunk by U96 in a prolonged attack. If the name sounds familiar its because its the same boat that founded the basis for the film Das Boot in actions in the autumn of that year. Photo from Wikipedia.

One of the few of your clan, you died…
Who fought in so many wars over the years –
Your young bride, the tears she must have cried,
To see realised a spouses fears…

What a shadow under which to be born,
The story of your father, though little known!
It must have made you proud, to take to the skies,
Your fathers son, to a man to have grown…

Your name, on a stone, a story hides,
Of one of Longford’s diasporas scattered sons
Who in British uniform fought and died
One of the few of your folk to die at an enemies guns.

You, your comrades lost to a man,
Small comfort killed a warrior of the seas…
Your body lies in waters off Rockall
Neath the tossing waves stirred to fury by seastorms breeze.

Ref:

The SS Almeda Star, the boat John Darrell Boyd died on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Almeda_Star

The U96 – the boat that sank the SS Almeda Star
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-96_(1940)

Captain of the U96, who killed John Darrell Boyd
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lothar-G%C3%BCnther_Buchheim

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