The Sunday Telegraph published an article by Juliette Garside under the headline “Online revolutionaries“ containing a reference to the Donovans and their website.
The long-lasting hostility between Shell and the Donovan family has not escaped the attention of the news media and other interested parties, such as The One World Trust, an independent research organisation associated with the UK Houses of Parliament and the United Nations.
Some memorable articles have been published regarding our activities and our website.read more
This closing chapter is about a victory I scored over Shell in 2015. The above screenshot is from an article published in the Financial Times on 5 February 2015.
Extract from the article:
“Royal Dutch Shell is facing a storm of criticism after deciding to proceed with plans to bring a ship named after a Nazi war criminal into UK waters to decommission the Brent oilfield…”
In January 2015, The Observer newspaper published a major article by its chief correspondent Ed Vulliamy under the headline:
“Jewish outrage as world’s largest ship, named after SS war criminal, arrives in Europe”.
It reported: “Leaders of Jewish communities and Holocaust memorial groups in Britain and the Netherlands have reacted with rage and despair at the arrival in Rotterdam of the world’s biggest ship, the Pieter Schelte, named after a Dutch officer in the Waffen-SS.”
The owner of the ship, Mr Edward Heerema, founder of the Allseas Shipping Group, named his new vessel after his father, a pioneer of the offshore oil industry, Pieter Schelte Heerema. In World War 2, he was an officer in the German Waffen-SS.
The Ed Vulliamy article quoted from a petition I launched online asking Edward Heerema to rename the ship.
Ed Vulliamy article published by The Observer and The Guardian Online
Extracts: Cidi cited a petition organised by a British-based website monitoring the affairs of Royal Dutch Shell, the energy group, which trumpeted the ship’s arrival in Rotterdam and which Allseas confirms in a press release to be among its early clients. The site, Royaldutchshellplc.com, is run by John Donovan, a former Shell contractor who is completing a book on the history of the company’s relations with the Third Reich. His petition reads: “Please change the ship’s name so that it no longer sails under the name of a former Waffen-SS officer jailed for war crimes.” Donovan told the Observer: “This public homage by Edward Heerema as the wealthy son of a Nazi war criminal is an affront to the relatives of tens of millions of souls who perished at the hands of Nazi Germany. The name is unacceptable.”
Shell was aware of the intent to name the giant Allseas vessel after a Nazi war criminal but still went ahead with its plans to become one of the first clients to use the ship.
