Twice Torpedoed A Merchant Seaman’s Heroic War

40,000 Merchant Marine volunteers lost their lives in the two World Wars – 27-year-old Colin Watt from Mangere was one. Torpedoed, taken prisoner on the Altmark, rescued, then fatally torpedoed off Long Island, New York, by a German U-boat. But his rescued letters, snapshots, and journals survived, and piecing them together, Watt’s namesake and nephew, Colin Carruthers, tells his uncle’s hair-raising war story.

Format: Hardback
Imprint: Small New Zealand Publisher
Publication date: 02/02/2026