Archibald Dickson’s Letter from Oran

Archibald Dickson sent this letter from Oran to the editor of the London Sunday Dispatch in April 1939. The forty-seven-year-old Welshman was the master of the British vessel Stanbrook, which had arrived in the Algerian port six days earlier after a harrowing voyage from Alicante. 

Dickson had commanded ships trading with Republican Spain for the previous year. The last two voyages had been on the Stanbrook, a small cargo ship with accommodation only for its crew of twenty-four. The ship had arrived in Alicante on 19 March, but “on account of the dislocation of business everywhere”, he had no instructions about the cargo he was to load. On 26 March, he made the dangerous journey to Madrid to get information and was told that the cargo was on its way. A telegram from the ship’s owners was waiting when he returned to Alicante. Unless there were real prospects of getting a cargo, he was “to return to sea forthwith”.

Some cargo was delivered the next day. At the same time, a mass of refugees fleeing the advancing Francoist troops, also descended on the last port (along with Almería) in Republican hands. Local officials requested that Dickson take them to Oran where, because “their passports were in order, they could be put ashore… easily”. Dickson was “in a quandary”. His instructions were “not to take refugees unless they were in real need”, but seeing their wretched condition, he decided “from a humanitarian point of view to take them on board”.

By 9 pm, some 900 had boarded “in an orderly manner”, but then order and discipline broke down, with even some of the guards and customs officials joining the stampede. When the Stanbrook eventually set sail at 11, there were 2,638 refugees on board. Dickson had not seen anything like it in his 33 years at sea. The ship had barely cleared the harbour when Alicante and the port were bombed from the air. 

The voyage to Oran was uneventful, although hundreds of refugees spent the cold night on deck for lack of room below, but the crowding meant they had to stand. Dickson had only “some hot coffee and a little food” to offer to “the weaker refugees”. Fortunately, many were carrying their own bread. They reached the outer harbour of Oran after twenty hours but had to spend a night moored there before receiving permission to dock. It was yet another day before the women and children could go ashore. Six days later, Dickson appended a hand-written note stating that 1,500 male refugees were still on board. When they were finally allowed to disembark, they were sent to concentration or labour camps.

On November 18, the Stanbrook was sunk by a German U-boat. Captain Dickson and his entire crew were lost. According to one witness, when the news reached the Algerian concentration camps, the Spanish prisoners offered a minute of silence.