Morris Beckman

Background

Morris Beckman was born in the north-eastern London Borough of Hackney.

Education

He attended Hackney Downs School.

Career

In 1939, when World World War II started, he tried to enlist in the Royal Air Force to become a pilot, but was turned down and signed up for the Merchant Navy as a radio officer Merchant Navy After three months training to become a radio officer, studying Morse code, Beckman was assigned to merchant vessels participating in the Battle of the Atlantic until 1942 and was torpedoed twice. He was posted to Bombay in 1942 and spent two years with the Mogul Lincolnshire, crewing auxiliary vessels for the Royal Indian Navy across the Bay of Bengal, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf.

Beckman"s vessels landed troops at Portuguese Augusta during the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943 and, three months later, at Taranto during the Allied invasion of Italy.

In 1944 his ship was attacked by the Luftwaffe en route to Alexandria, lost a propeller and was towed to Portuguese Sudan. He caught paratyphoid, convalesced in Karachi, then worked his passage back home via Durban and New New York

By 1946 he was permanently onshore back in London and helped to found the 43 Group. The firm steadily expanded, at one time having several factories in the United Kingdom and one in Malta.

In 1975, faced with increasingly cheap imports from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore, the company went into liquidation.

Beckman started further small-scale businesses in the same industry, eventually giving up work for writing in the 1980s.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Jewish Brigade: An Army with Two Masters 1944-45

    ( Although over a million Jews were estimated to be fight...)

  • The Jewish Brigade: An Army with Two Masters 1944–45

    ( A brigade was formed in 1944 as part of the British Arm...)

  • The Hackney Crucible

    (Book by Beckman, Morris)

  • Jewish Brigade: An Army with Two Masters 1944-1945.
  • Atlantic Roulette: A Merchantman at War, June 1940, Running the Gauntlet of U-boat Alley, E-boat Alley and the Luftwaffe
  • (The Hackney Crucible * * ) Author: Morris Beckman Mar-1996
  • The Hackney Crucible by Morris Beckman (1995-11-01)
  • The Jewish Brigade

Politics

Since The 43 Group was published, Beckman has lectured in Britain, Germany, Holland and Ireland to groups interested in the fight against fascism.

Connections

Partner:

John David Gold