Said Saleh was a donkeyman on the SS Zillah, a 3,779 ton steam cargo ship. On 22 October 1917 she was en route from Archangel, in the allied Russian Empire, to the UK with a cargo of timber. She was sunk by a torpedo fired by German submarine U-46 approximately 25 nautical miles north-east of Kildin Island, in the Barents Sea off Murmansk. 18 men were lost, of whom 8 were Arab seamen. One was Said Saleh, whose last address was a lodging house in Cardiff. A month later the owners replied to a letter from his wife in South Shields that the lifeboat he was in was still missing. He and his Arab shipmates are recorded on the Memorial in Mumbai. His wife, previously married to Ali Hassan, who owned a boarding house, was born Maud Deans in South Shields. She had given birth two months before to a son, Norman, who, in the 1990s, would be a great help to researchers with family documents and information.

Extract taken from Peter Livsey’s essay which can be found in full here.

Click here to access the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s memorial details for Said Saleh.