Captain Cossar: Clan Line Captain to Clan Line Commodore 1911-1953

Born in Dublin, the son of a military tailor, Arthur Robert Cossar had little interest in tailoring, but chose instead to leave Dublin for the bright lights of Cardiff where in 1906 he became an indentured apprentice on a steam ship for a period of 4 years.  He was then just over 17 years old. Four years later, Arthur went home to Dublin to sit the first of three mandatory certificates for every hopeful seaman.  These were the certificates of competency, which all the fledgling cadets studied hard for.  In 1911 Arthur sat for and gained his first certificate of competency as a second mate. So far, so good.  In this same year he joined Clan Line as a 4^th officer.  His position among the other officers was even lower than the certificate in his pocket, but on the positive side, he was on a new Clan ship, the Clan Mackenzie.  Over the next few years he worked hard, learned as much as he could, and sat his certificate of competency as a first mate, in 1913.  In 1917 he sat for the final certificate of competency as a Master for foreign-going steamships only.  With all three certificates safely in his pocket, Arthur was promoted to chief officer on the Mackenzie.

There is every indication that young Arthur made a good job of his new position. Only a short fifteen years later, Arthur finally gained his command as master of a ship. His first voyage as Captain was to deliver a large and rather elderly turret ship, the Clan Buchanan, to the breakers yard. In later life Captain Cossar treasured two photographs, one of which was a photograph of the Clan Buchanan taken in the Vittoria Dock at Birkenhead, before he took the ship out to sea for its final journey.

By 1935, Captain Cossar was Master of the Clan Macphee, sailing from Britain to India. The voyage was unexceptional, until the MacPhee, entering Indian waters received a message via telegram from Cayzer House. The Mauritian owner of an elderly iron barque had heard nothing from his ship, the SS Diego, for some months after a heavy storm in June, somewhere in the vicinity of the Chagos Islands. He had contacted Cayzer House to ask if the MacPhee, roughly in the area, could have a look around the islands and see if they could locate any survivors from his ship (he did not seem worried about the barque). The ship owner offered the advice not to make a search at night, as there were many coral reefs around the Chagos Islands. The message was passed from Cayzer House to Captain Cossar, and he paused his own voyage for a short while to investigate the Chagos Islands as instructed. The islands were generally rather bare and unappealing. Very few people actually lived on these fairly barren islands, and ships did not sail by these islands very often if at all, since there were no regular shipping routes in this area. The small, scattered population did not offer much in the way of commerce.

Captain Cossar started looking around the islands, only in daylight as advised, and always on the lookout for the coral reefs. After looking over a couple of deserted islands, it didn’t seem very likely that anyone had made it ashore from the missing ship. Then one sharp-eyed officer said that he was fairly certain he could see something moving on another of the islands. The Captain took a look at this island, as yet unexamined, and agreed to investigate. The ship dropped anchor quite a distance from the island, to avoid the reefs; and the Captain with a few officers took one of the lifeboats to row nearer to the island. As the boat started making its careful way towards this new island, the beach front suddenly lit up with lines of small fires since this particular island, known as Eagle Island was in fact quite unequivocally occupied. Arriving near enough the beach to get safely out of the lifeboat, Captain Cossar and his officers were very surprised to be met by quite a large number of people – the passengers, crew, and captain of the missing barque. There were sixty-eight men, women, and children, every one of whom had been rescued from the wrecked SS Diego. The oldest was an elderly woman who was about to turn 100; and the youngest was a six-month old baby. These castaways had been living on Eagle Island for 10 weeks, with a diet limited to coconuts, bird’s eggs and rice, in various imaginative combinations.

So how had the 68 passengers and crew survived the storm which destroyed their barque? As it had become obvious that the barque was doomed during the storm back in June, the Master of the ship, Mr F.H.Adam, had got everyone aboard into a small boat which seems to have been the Diego’s only lifeboat, and with his crew had started to row towards the nearest island, which happened to be Eagle Island. This particular island was visited by a handful of locals periodically to pick coconuts, and when they saw the small boat being rowed towards the island, one of these men got into his dug-out, rowed out to meet the boat, and towed it over to Eagle Island. After that they were on their own, and Captain Adam did an extraordinary job in keeping everyone too busy to worry about their situation. The Captain divided everyone into groups. Women were in charge of cooking and weaving baskets from coconut palm fronds to organise their salvaged possessions. Men were tasked with building shelters, and foraging for anything edible. The Captain also ordered a 24- hour watch to be kept on the sea, in case a ship came by. The crew and officers would have been the best people to do this. Children were distracted by giving them lessons or helping their families. Overall, everyone knew exactly what they needed to do for the common good and no-one rebelled. The men had also built a ”flagstaff”, although the photos of it seem to be more of a tall wooden frame, on which they could hang a flag, or any piece of clothing, hence the movement that the Macphee’s officer had noticed. They had also made small piles of tinder, ready to be lit if any ship came into view in the hope of attracting attention. It spoke volumes that not one ship had passed by Eagle Island until the man in Mauritius made his request to Cayzer House. Eagle Island was not a particularly hospitable island, unless you were a rat or a mosquito. The water tasted brackish, and the only edible items on the island were coconuts and birds’ eggs. Someone had brought a large bag of rice along in the escape from the Diego, and when rice ran out, the men patched up the boat from the Diego which had been dragged over the coral reef, and was now a little leaky. Once patched, one of the Diego’s officers rowed the boat over to the next island, Peros Banhos, which was a slightly larger island with a slightly larger populace and more importantly it had a shop where one might buy a bag of rice. Over the months, the officer would end up making more than one visit to Peros Banhos for rice. Captain Cossar arrived just at the right time, as the castaways were down to their last bag of rice.

Eagle Island was not a particularly hospitable island, unless you were a rat or a mosquito. The water tasted brackish, and the only edible items on the island were coconuts and birds’ eggs. Someone had brought a large bag of rice along in the escape from the Diego, and when rice ran out, the men patched up the boat from the Diego which had been dragged over the coral reef, and was now a little leaky. Once patched, one of the Diego’s officers rowed the boat over to the next island, Peros Banhos, which was a slightly larger island with a slightly larger populace and more importantly it had a shop where one might buy a bag of rice. Over the months, the officer would end up making more than one visit to Peros Banhos for rice. Captain Cossar arrived just at the right time, as the castaways were down to their last bag of rice.

As soon as possible the two captains agreed the plan of action. Once again, the locals helped out, and between them they got everyone off Eagle Island, this time using the Macphee lifeboat, which had to be rowed out to where the SS Macphee was still anchored.

The only real challenge was having to climb up the side of the Macphee on a rather rickety rope ladder. Once everyone was aboard, Captain Cossar steered the ship over to Peros Banhos where he unloaded the 68 castaways. Peros Banhos was a rare island with a population of a few hundred people, and was also the island that was the nearest to the Maldives.

As a thank you present, the Master of the Diego, Captain Adam, gave Captain Cossar a rather nice photograph of the SS Diego, and the Diego’s ships bell.

Captain Adam was a member of the Adam family who ran Adam & Co. Ltd on the Island of Mauritius, a business founded in 1802. Mainly now exporting sugar, the Clan Line ships had been picking up sugar from Adam & Co Ltd Mauritius since 1881. When the owner of the Diego called Cayzer House, to ask a favour, he was not only asking if there were any survivors of the presumed shipwreck back in June, but also, and to him, more importantly, was whether Captain Adam had survived.

After Captain Cossar had reported back to Cayzer House, he continued on his original course, towards India. Meanwhile Cayzer House PR team seem to have either put out a press release about this amazing story or contacted the press directly. At any rate, suddenly Captain Cossar received some urgent telegrams from the gentlemen of the press begging for exclusive interviews. He gave one interview on the radio, but the press still wrote up copy, even if they didn’t actually know anything about the incident.

While this was the end of this particular story, Captain Cossar went on to more adventures. During WWII he managed to get two convoys safely back to Britain, which did not go unnoticed by Head Office.

In August 1942, Captain Cossar joined the now famous “Operation Pedestal” Convoy, as Master of the SS Clan Ferguson, in an attempt to get provisions and fuel oil to Malta, which was in great need of both. The Convoy was attacked very hard, and Clan Ferguson was torpedoed and burst into flames. After launching every lifeboat and raft, even though the ship was on fire, Captain Cossar did not leave his post until he was certain that everyone who could be rescued got off the ship. Only then he got into one of the rafts. He spent 3 1/2 days on the raft before being picked up by an Italian motor torpedo ship which took him and the others in his raft on board and delivered them to Sicily, from whence he was moved around to various POW camps in Italy and Germany. He even managed to write his captain’s report at some point, which went into quite a lot of detail about the events that led to the sinking of the Clan Ferguson. In later life he said that of his 124 crew, only 11 lives were lost. He also managed to note down all the different POW camps he was moved to, on a separate piece of paper.

In the end Captain Cossar was not liberated from the POW camps until May 1945. He then returned to Clan Line, where he was briefly Master of the Clan Campbell, before the company gave him command of the Clan Cumming, the first new ship he had ever been appointed to. He was very pleased to get this command and kept photographs of his captains’ cabin which was quite a luxurious suite of rooms. He was master of the Clan Cumming for three years.

By 1952, Captain Cossar was the oldest of the Clan captains, and automatically became Commodore of the Fleet. At this time he was Master of the Lanarkshire, a cargo vessel built in Greenock Dockyard in 1940, and owned by Scottish Shire Line, a subsidiary of Clan Line. Thus, The Lanarkshire became the Flag Ship of Clan Line until Cossar’s retirement in 1953. To the end of his life, Commodore Cossar kept a photograph of his final command among his papers. He died in 1973.