SS Anglo Saxon was a cargo ship carrying coal from Wales to Argentina that was sunk by the German auxiliary cruiser Widder on 21 August 1940.

[2] The 5,596 ton merchant ship SS Anglo Saxon filled up with coal at Newport Docks and left for Bahia Blanca, Argentina on 6 August 1940 with 41 officers and crew.

These men were: Barry C. Denny (mate, 31), Lionel H. Hawks (engineer, 23), Leslie J. Morgan (cook, 20, injured foot), Francis G. Penny[4] (Royal Marine gunner, 44, shot through right arm and right leg), Roy H. Pilcher (radio operator, 21, injured from gun fire), Robert G. Tapscott (able seaman, 19) and Wilbert 'Roy' Widdicombe (able seaman, 24).

[5] The survivors saw two other lifeboats leaving the stricken Anglo Saxon; both had lights which attracted the gunners on the Widder which open fire and killed all aboard the craft.

The boat contained the following items: The crew initially lay low to avoid the Widder and then set sail west the following morning aiming for an island in the Caribbean or to attract a ship with the flares.

The log, written by another survivor, noted on 4 September that Francis Penny had "slipped overboard" (this is usually inferred to mean the person, of their own volition, decided to commit suicide by drowning rather than try any further to survive).

A day later on 5 September Denny and Lionel Hawks "go over the side no water" (as with Penny, these men probably committed suicide by drowning, having given up hope of rescue).

[6] After 70 days and almost 2,800 miles (4,500 km) since the sinking of the Anglo Saxon, on Wednesday 30 October 1940 the two survivors landed on the island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas.

And then the whole horrid situation came back to me with all its vividness, and I suffered a severe misgiving, until the man started to talk to me and then I realised that we had had the good fortune to wash up on one of Britain's far flung colonies.

He had written a suicide note to the local paper, the South Wales Echo, in which he described how the depression he was suffering, from his experience lost at sea, were making his life intolerable.

[9] The captain of the Widder (and later the German auxiliary cruiser Michel), Helmuth von Ruckteschell, was captured by the British and tried for war crimes.

One of the key people involved in the repatriation of the jolly boat was Anthony Smith, the broadcaster and author of 'Survived', an account of the Anglo Saxon and her crew.

Together with Ted Milburn, the son of the Anglo Saxon's chief engineer, they worked to get the boat moved to the Imperial War Museum, London.