MS Johanna Thorden

Work today took me close to St Peter's Kirk, Eastside, South Ronaldsay, so I grabbed a few minutes to look round.

This unusual stone caught my eye and I was interested to find out about it.

The sad history is of the Johanna Thorden, a Finnish motor cargo vessel, which was shipwrecked in the Pentland Firth on 12th January 1937.

She had only been built the year before and was travelling from New York to Gothenburg in Sweden with a cargo which included several hundred tons of copper ingots. In a storm, with poor visibility, she went aground on the island of Swona and was wrecked . Of the 38 on board, 30 lives were lost, including two women and two children.
 
Although most of the bodies were returned to Finland for burial, this grave marks the resting place of two of the sailors:

Elis Cedergren born 24.6.1909
Runar Strom born 14.9.1913

The full inscription is in extras.