New Discoveries

It may appear that history is a static thing. It’s happened and so it doesn’t change. In many ways this is true but what does change is our understanding and perceptions of it. I’ve written a book on a specific subject but I am still learning and discovering so much about it every day. All these discoveries and these new contacts mean that history is still unraveling and revealing itself to me on a regular basis. Last week my husband and I took his aunt out to dinner. Christine is Arnold’s only daughter and the sister of my father-in-law. Chris and I have spoken about my book on a number of occasions but last week, when I presented her with her copy of the book, she mentioned to be a sketch she had on her wall that her father had done. It was of a ship, would I like to see it and when I did, did I have any idea as to which ship it was? The sketch is larger than the other sketches of ships we have in the family archives but it was unmistakably by Arnold’s hand. Looking at the paper and nature of the sketch I thought it may be of the same WW1 era as his other sketches. I sent it to my father-in-law who is ex merchant navy and he assured me that he was quite convinced that this was another sketch of HMS India. He made some interesting observations stating “Interesting to note that the ship is flying the white ensign from the rear mast yardarm – that may have been added in the conversion so that the vessel and her flag could be more readily identified in wartime? The white ensign indicates that there is a Royal Navy Captain in command, or at least RNR, but that the ship is a naval ship.”

We compared the sketch to the other two sketches we have in our possession and the similarities are unavoidable and so we assume that this newly discovered sketch is another of HMS India and probably completed during internment. It pleases me so much to find more material related to the ship, to Arnold and to the time spent in internment. I will always be looking out for more!

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