The story of the Strange Sunderland made Anchor with a Swastika on it sitting in Northern France
Photography submitted by Sun FM Presenter Simon Grundy
In Dunkirk Quayside in Northern France, sitting next to its port museum, sits an enormous anchor. An information plaque next to it reads that the anchor was built in Sunderland, and was once used by the Royal Navy.
However, on closer inspection, this Anchor (if you see the photo) bares a very unusual symbol on it, a swastika. How is it, once might ask, that a Sunderland made British product might bear the symbol of what become a moral evil and definitive enemy in World War II?
Well, there’s a curious story behind it. This anchor was manufactured by a local firm known as W.L Byers & Co, which according to sources, marked every Anchor it made with a Swastika (pre-world war II). As the plaque continues to read, its use of Swastikas was at that time, a sign of good luck and fortune, of course necessary for sailors amidst turbulent waters.
It is a reminder that the Swastika symbol was ultimately perverted by Nazism, who transformed it into a symbol of hatred, genocide and unspeakable evil, destroying its reputation in Europe forever. Yet in South and East Asia, the Swastika lives on in its legitimate form and is closely associated with Buddhism.
The W.L Byers company folded in 1962. Despite this, the legacy of its anchors have become such a novelty in the seafaring world that small memorabilia ones, in their style, are continued to be sold widely online.
A big thank you to Simon Grundy for sending us this information and interesting historical trivia!
