On the 12th of November 1941 the British cargo ship Monmouth Coast (1928) was sailing 2 miles southwest of Hook Head, Wexford when it was attacked by 2 German aircraft. The vessel sustained slight damaged & one crew member was killed.

According to the RNLI records the small cargo steamer was en route from Cork to Glasgow when attacked. 

The weather was fine, and the coast watchers (they would have been based locally at either Hook Head or Brownstown) saw the aeroplanes drop bombs close to the steamer, and machine-gun her. The aeroplanes then made off, and the watchers believed that one of them had been hit by the steamer’s answering fire.

A message was sent to the Dunmore East life-boat station at 6.20pm and 15 minutes later the motor life-boat Annie Blanche Smith was launched. She found that two on board the steamer had been wounded, and brought them ashore, landing them at 7.30 They were sent to the Waterford hospital, and there one of them died. The steamer waited until the following day and then continued on her journey.

The man that died was 21 year old gunner Arthur Price and he was subsquently buried in Ballynaneashagh Greaveyard, Waterford. 

Over the summer (2025) I was speaking to Billy Power about the incident and he said to this day he recalled the scene from Dunmore on a clear and calm evening and the shock of witnessing the incident off the harbour. 

Monmouth Coast.

The ship would later be sunk off Tory Island by U-1305 in April 1945.  On that occassion the master, 13 crew members and two gunners were lost. The sole survivor, messroom boy Derek Cragg, was rescued by a Irish fishing boat and landed at Arranmore Island on 26 April.