Liverpool Naval Memorial

About

The Liverpool Naval Memorial, also known as the Memorial to the Missing of the Naval Auxiliary Personnel of the Second World War or the Merchant Navy War Memorial, is a war memorial at Pier Head beside the River Mersey in Liverpool, near to the Royal Liver Building and the Museum of Liverpool. It commemorates nearly 1,400 men from the British Merchant Navy who died on active service with Royal Navy in the Second World War, and who have no known grave. More than 13,000 officers and seamen of the Merchant Navy agreed to serve with the Royal Navy in the Second World War, serving mainly in auxiliary vessels such as armed merchant cruisers, subject to military discipline but still receiving civilian pay.

The depot for registration and administration of the naval auxiliaries from the Merchant Navy was established at Liverpool. After the Second World War, the Imperial War Graves Commission (later the Commonwealth War Graves Commission) organised a competition for a memorial, with a budget of £5,000, open to architects who had served in the armed forces. The winning design was created by architects Charles Frederick Blythin and Stanley Harold Smith, with sculpture by George Herbert Tyson...