Career
He is known for his bravery in breaking the German blockade of Tobruk in the Second World War with his small schooner During the Second World War he was wounded several times and finally taken prisoner by the Germans, from which he attempted numerous escapes. Palmer"s name at birth was Alfred O"Brien. He first went to sea on the Daniel, a 185-ton sailing vessel built in Norway in 1830.
After three voyages to New Zealand on the Daniel in November 1916 Palmer joined the Burrowa an Australian merchant sailing vessel (2902 gross tonnes).
On 27 April Burrowa was attacked and sunk "sixty miles west of the Scilly Isles" by a German submarine. The crew spent two nights in a lifeboat.
They were sighted by a patrol plane, picked up and taken to Penzance. Palmer then served in the British navy until the end of the First World War.
Between the First and Second World Wars, Palmer was a merchant seaman serving on many Commonwealth Lincolnshire ships.
The crew members returned to Sydney on the steamers Australrange and Australmont in July 1920. In 1928, as the depression began, the Commonwealth line was sold and crews were retrenched. On the outbreak of the Second World War he rejoined the Royal Navy, and first served as executive officer of HMS Medway (F25).
The was a 200-ton schooner captured from the Italians by the British destroyer HMS Dainty on 1 January 1941.
Palmer was made skipper of the Maria Giovani in January 1941. There is slight differences in how his ship was captured with one saying the Italians "trapped him by a ruse", and the other saying the Germans "kidded him" to make landfall in their territory, regardless Palmer and his crew became prisoners of war in Italy.
The supply of Tobruk by Palmer and others was known as the "Ferry Service". Palmer was accused of embezzlement while working as Marine Superintendent of Waterways Transport for the Chinese National Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in 1947.
He was convicted and sentenced to one year hard labour but the conviction was overturned on appeal.
Pedlar Palmer of Tobruk (1981) Canberra, Australia: Roebuck Society. The Pirate of Tobruk: a sailor"s life on the Seven Seas, with Mary East. Curtis (1994), Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute.
