All brave sailors : the sinking of the Anglo-Saxon, 21 August 1940

On 21 August 1940, a German warship sank an English freighter, the Anglo-Saxon, in the mid Atlantic.

The German ship, the Widder, was part of a class of converted merchant ships known as surface raiders, warships that would disguise themselves as harmless vessels from neutral countries and prey upon Allied shipping.

A small band of survivors from the Anglo-Saxon - initially seven of them - escaped in its jolly boat, and embarked on what would become one of the longest open boat voyages in recorded history.

Within a few weeks, only two men lived: Bob Tapscott and Roy Widdicombe.

On 24 September, they made the last entry in their scant log: 'All water and biscuits gone, but still hoping to make land.' For the remaining 37 days they subsisted on rain, seaweed, minute sea creatures and, of course, the dwindling reserves their bodies retained.

They contemplated suicide, fought with each other, and weathered a three-day hurricane.

On 30 October, they landed in the Bahamas after sailing more than 2,700 miles.

Today, the jolly boat is the only survivor of this horrific episode. It was preserved at Mystic Seaport, America's leading maritime museum, until 1997 when it was returned to England.

It is now the central object in the Battle of the Atlantic exhibition at London's Imperial War Museum.