THIS Remembrance Sunday it is a special year in Bolton as in spring this year the last former serving seaman survivor of an important Royal Navy submarine of World War II died in Bolton.

Arthur Melling, who had lived in Breightmet, was one of the main crew of 44 officers and men who served on HMS Saracen in the war.

Saracen was a 990 ton S-class submarine launched in February 1942 out of Cammell Laird, Merseyside. The boat terrorised the German and the Italian navies in the war attacking and damaging many sea vessels and it sunk no less than three enemy submarines, two enemy tugs and two enemy ships.

Just six months before HMS Saracen was sunk in the sea off Northern Corsica at Basita the ship had surfaced on February 11,1943 to land three spies; two Corsicans and a British MI6 agent. Secret agents established the Corisican Resistance part of a network of spies and resistance overseas that was hugely important in the defeat of the Nazis in World War II.

Surviving submariners of HMS Saracen were captured in enemy water as prisoners of war and many did not survive the war. We will remember them.

Cllr Sue Haworth

Harper Green ward

Bolton MBC