Wartime Mysteries

 Helen Duncan

                                                                   Spiritualism

In 1941, Scottish meduim Helen Duncan created a mystery which has not been solved to this day.

She said she had a message from a dead sailor aboard HMS Barham. This caused a panic at the Ministry of Defence, HMS Barham had been sunk in action in the Mediterranean Sea with the loss of over 800 lives, but the MoD had limited the knowledge of the sinking to the families of the dead to protect the morale of the British public, still reeling from the loss of HMS Hood, a few months earlier. She was held as a a German spy, but released when no proof could be shown.

She had previoulsy predicted the loss of HMS Hood, which came as a shock to the public, but not to military experts as the Hood was outdated by 1939 being launched nearly 25 years earier.

Mrs. Duncan was later exposed as a fake medium in the last case of its kind in Scotland, that doesn't answer how she knew of the sinking of the Barham.

HMS Rawalpindi

One thing which puzzled me was why the captain of HMS Rawalpindi was not charged with a war crime? After all, his decision to go against admiraltry orders, and engage the Scharnhorst resulted in the deaths of over 800 men under his command,  in less than 15 minutes. To give a comparison the 2,000 deaths during the Bataan Death March took weeks.

I guess having your son aboard HMS Ark Royal outweighs your crime, but what a out the families who lost their men, where is there justice?

To show the disparity, Rawalpindi was an armed merchant cruiser, a converted passenger ship, she could defend herself from an aircraft attack. Scharnhorst was one of the most powerful ships of the time. Rawalpindi was doomed from the moment the captain disobeyed his orders. That is probably why he attacked, he knew his career was over, and a court martial would bring disgrace to the family.

The irony of the situation is Scharnhorst and Bismark, were responsible for sinking HMS Hood a week earlier, an action which sparked a hunt for the Bismark, the result was the officer of the watch when Bismark was spotted was the son of the captain of the Rawalpindi.

So, we return to Helen Duncan prophesying the sinking of HMS Hood, did she really prophecy the sinking of the most powerful ship in the Royal Navy at the time, or did she say what most people thought, HMS Hood should have been scrapped.

The Rawalpindi incident has a link to my history, my father said that he was aboard the Empress of India, which was being escorted when the Rawalpindi spotted the Scharnhorst. Even before the internet, I knew this was not true, why would a ship bound for India, go via the North Atlantic when the usual route would be to go via the coast of Ireland to join a convoy?

To add to the confusion, there is NO record of a ship called the Empress of India. A few years ago, my late friend, who lived in Seattle, told me her father was in the same convoy as my father had been in.

Years later, my mother cleared the mystery up.