Captain Bernard Peter de Neumann GM (18 September 1917 – 16 September 1972) was a British Merchant Navy officer. His seagoing career included being sunk twice in the space of one month, and being charged and convicted of piracy by the Vichy French, after which he was imprisoned in Timbuktu. World War II During the Second World War, De Neumann was awarded both the George Medal and the Lloyd's War Medal for Bravery at Sea for removing a 250 kilogram bomb from deep in the engine-room of SS Tewkesbury and dropping it over his ship's side during a Luftwaffe attack off Aberdeen on 1 March 1941. SS Tewkesbury was torpedoed and sunk by gunfire from U-69 on 21 May 1941. All of the crew survived and escaped in two boats; de Neumann's lifeboat was picked up by the American freighter SS Exhibitor. He was later transferred to HMS Cilicia. (SS Tewkesbury'''s other lifeboat was rescued by SS Antinous after 13 days.) HMS Cilicia arrived at Freetown on 17 June 1941, and de Neumann volunteered as Second Officer aboard the Royal Navy prize vessel SS Criton (captured from the Vichy French). SS Criton sailed from Freetown for the UK on 19 June 1941, but was intercepted by two Vichy France warships, Air France IV and Edith Germaine, on 21 June and sunk by gunfire. Criton's crew were escorted under armed guard to Conakry, where the executive officers were tried and found guilty of piracy by a Vichy French naval court-martial and imprisoned in Timbuktu. They managed to escape, and walked up the Niger River before they were recaptured and returned to Timbuktu. De Neumann was eventually released at the end of December 1942, and arrived back in the UK aboard the armed merchant cruiser HMS Asturias in mid-January 1943. De Neumann received the George Medal from King George VI for his bravery while aboard SS Tewkesbury in mid-February 1943. In 1945 he captained the ex-Luftwaffe Flak Ship Hilde on a voyage to Leningrad, as part of the division of German ships amongst the Allies, returning overland by train and ferry to the UK. He then captained the Empire Maymorn on her delivery to Georgetown, British Guiana, returning to the UK as Captain of the Ariguani, which had formerly been HMS Ariguani, the very first Fighter Catapult Ship and a forerunner of the Catapult Armed Merchantmen. From 1947 to 1953, he captained