WORLD WAR II

September 1939 ~ 1945
Also known as WWII, WW2 and the Second World War.

Click HERE for an interactive World War II timeline at The National WWII Museum.

Athenia ~ 3 September 1939

Found at www.ww2today.com

Athena sinking after being torpedoed by U-30

The SS Athenia was west of Ireland, en route to Canada when she was torpedoed at 1945 on September 3, 1939.  Oberleutnant Lemp, commander of U-30, claimed to have mistaken this passenger ship as one carrying armed merchantmen or troops.  Of the 1,103 people on board, 118 passengers and crew were killed ... 28  of them U.S. citizens. Lemp realized his mistake and kept his actions secret until he returned to base. Meanwhile Nazi propaganda sought to make the British look as if they, themselves, sunk the ship as part of a scheme to bring America into the war.

The following account of the attack on the Athenia was given by Adolf Schmidt to the Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunal after the war. Schmidt was wounded in a subsequent action during the same patrol and put ashore in then neutral Iceland. He spent the rest of the war as an internee and then as a prisoner of war.

"I, Adolf Schmidt, Official Number N 1043-33T, do solemnly declare that: I am now confined to Camp No. 133, Lethbridge, Alberta.

   On the first day of war, 3rd September, 1939, a ship of approximately 10,000 tons was torpedoed in the late hours of the evening by the U-30. After the ship was torpedoed and we surfaced again, approximately half an hour after the explosion, the Commandant called me to the tower in order to show me the torpedoed ship. I saw the ship with my very eyes, but I do not think that the ship could see our U-boat at that time on account of the position of the moon. Only a few members of the crew had an opportunity to go to the tower in order to see the torpedoed ship. Apart from myself, Oberleutnant Hinsch was in the tower when I saw the steamer after the attack.

   I observed that the ship was listing. No warning shot was fired before the torpedo was launched. I myself observed much commotion on board the torpedoed ship. I believe that the ship had only one smoke stack. In the attack on this steamer one or two torpedoes were fired which did not explode, but I myself heard the explosion of the torpedo which hit the steamer. Oberleutnant Lemp waited until darkness before surfacing.

   I was severely wounded by aircraft 14th September 1939.
   Oberleutnant Lemp shortly before my disembarkation in Reykjavik, 19th September, 1939, visited me in the forenoon in the petty officers’ quarters where I was lying severely wounded. Oberleutnant Lemp then had the petty officers’ quarters cleared in order to be alone with me. Oberleutnant Lemp then showed me a declaration under oath according to which I had to bind myself to mention nothing concerning the incidents of 3rd September, 1939, on board the U-30. This declaration under oath had approximately the following wording: ‘I, the undersigned, swear hereby that I shall keep secret all happenings of 3rd September, 1939, on board the U-30, from either foe or friend, and that I shall erase from my memory all happenings of this day.’ I signed this declaration under oath, which was drawn up by the Commandant in his own handwriting, very illegibly with my left hand.
   Later on in Iceland when I heard about the sinking of the Athenia, the idea came into my mind that the U-30 on the 3rd September, 1939, might have sunk the Athenia, especially since the Captain caused me to sign the above mentioned declaration.
   Up to today I have never spoken to anyone concerning these events. Due to the termination of the war I consider myself freed from my oath.”

There is a very thorough article of the circumstances surrounding the sinking of the Athenia on on Maritime Quest, including an account of how Goebbels sought to use the episode for propaganda purposes.

Click HERE for details of 86 people who were on board.

Abukir ~ 28 May 1940

Found at www.colabee.blogspot.com

Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson built this ship at Wallsend on the River Tyne in northeast England, completing her in November 1920. She was built as Island Queen for the London and Channel Islands Steamship Company, which appointed Cheesewright and Ford of London to manage her. In 1934 London and Channel Islands sold the ship to Monroe Brothers of Liverpool, who renamed her Kyle Queen. In 1935 Monroe Brothers sold her to the Khedivial Mail Steamship and Graving Dock Company of Alexandria, which operated ships and docks for the Kingdom of Egypt. The company, which traded as the Khedivial Mail Line (KML), renamed the ship Abukir after the coastal town of Abu Qir on the edge of the Nile delta and registered her in Alexandria. In 1936 the company was reconstituted as the Pharaonic Mail Line, but continued trading as the KML.

Although Egypt was supposedly independent, in practice the British Empire controlled the country. In 1940 the UK Ministry of War Transport requisitioned seven KML ships and placed five of them, including Abukir, under the management of the General Steam Navigation Company, a subsidiary of P&O.

On May 10, 1940 Germany invaded the Low Countries, overrunning Luxembourg within hours and the Netherlands within a week. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and French First Army advanced into Flanders to reinforce Belgian forces, and each sent a liaison mission to coordinate with the Belgian Grand Quartier ("High Command"). The British mission was named after its leader, the staff officer Major-General Henry Needham. Abukir was also sent to Belgium, where she arrived later in May at the Port of Ostend and unloaded a cargo of Army stores for the BEF.

German forces broke the French First Army, crossed the French frontier and on May 20 reached the Baie de Somme on the English Channel. This trapped the BEF and remaining French forces in northern Flanders, where they retreated toward Ostend, Nieuwpoort and Dunkirk. On May 27 Operation Dynamo began to evacuate the BEF by sea from Dunkirk. That afternoon at 1754 hrs the Needham Mission at the Belgian GQG reported that King Leopold III planned to negotiate a surrender to Germany. The Mission then retreated to the Port of Ostend, where Abukir was berthed. The Mission was among more than 200 BEF soldiers, RAF and Belgian Air Component personnel who crowded onto Abukir, along with 15 German prisoners of war, six priests, 40 to 50 women including a party of nuns from a convent in Bruges and a group of British schoolgirls. At 2220 hrs, under the cover of darkness, the little coaster sailed for England.

As Abukir slowly headed west for England, Luftwaffe aircraft bombed her for an hour and a half but failed to hit her. Then at 0115 hrs on May 28 a 44-knot   Kriegsmarine E-boat, S-34 commanded by OLt.z.S Obermaier, attacked her off Nieuwpoort near the Westhinder or the Noordhinder lightvessel. Abukir Captain Rowland Morris-Woolfenden, took a zigzag course by which the coaster avoided two torpedoes from S-34. The coaster sighted S-34 off her port bow 20 minutes later. Morris-Woolfenden changed course to ram the torpedo boat, but with a top speed of only 8 knots Abukir was too slow. S-34 fired two more torpedoes. The first missed, but the second hit the coaster amidships, blowing her in two. Abukir burst into flames and sank within a minute. She was the first Allied ship to be sunk by an E-boat.

Many of those aboard were killed in the impact and sinking, but S-34 then trained a searchlight on survivors in the water and machine-gunned them. Abukir Second Officer, Temporary Sub-lieutenant Patrick Wills-Rust RNR, was on the bridge when Abukir was hit. Concrete slabs that had been installed to protect the bridge from machine-gun fire pinned him down and he went down with the ship. However, as the ship settled on the seabed the slabs were dislodged, freeing Wills-Rust and letting him return to the surface.

At first light five Royal Navy destroyers came to search for survivors: HMS Anthony Codrington, Grenade, Jaguar and Javelin. They spent several hours searching between the North Goodwin lightvessel and the Kwinte Bank lightbuoy but found only a small number of survivors (accounts vary between 26 and 33), including Captain Morris-Woolfenden, Sub-lieutenant Wills-Rust and two nuns. About 200 of the people aboard Abukir were killed. HMS Codrington rescued most of the survivors. They had been in the water for six hours.

In 1969 a commercial diver found Abukir wreck off the coast of Nord-Pas-de-Calais in northern France. Items found at the wreck site included plates, cups, teapots and cutlery initialled "KML" for the Khedivial Mail Line, Lee-Enfield .303 calibre rifle ammunition and rosary beads.

Recognizing many acts of wartime courage by seafarers, in December 1940 Lloyd's of London announced a new award, the Lloyd's War Medal for Bravery at Sea. The first such medal awarded was to Captain Morris-Woolfenden, and the second was to Sub-lieutenant Wills-Rust. Morris-Woolfenden was also awarded the MBE.

Calabria ~ 8 December 1940

The SS Calabria was a passenger and cargo steamship built by AG Weser for Norddeutscher Lloyd. She was launched as the Werra and completed in 1922. The Werra was one of a series of six sister ships that AG Weser built for NDL. Werra and Weser were completed in 1922; Coblenz, Saarbrücken and Trier in 1923 and Fulda in 1924.

In 1935 NDL sold Werra, Coblenz and Saarbrücken to Flotte Riunite Cosulich-Lloyd-Sabaudo which renamed them Calabria, Sicilia and Toscana and registered them in Genoa. In 1937 the three ships were sold to Lloyd Triestino, which registered Calabria in Trieste.

On June 10, 1940 Italy declared war on France and the United Kingdom. At the time Calabria was in drydock in Calcutta in British India, so on June 11 the British authorities seized her. She was transferred to the MoWT, which appointed the British-India Steam Navigation Company to manage her. The MoWT planned to rename her Empire Inventor, but this intention was overtaken by events.

In December 1940 the Calabria was en route to the UK with a cargo of 4,000 tons of iron, 3,050 tons of tea and 1,870 tons of oil cake. Her Master, David Lonie, commanded 128 officers and crew plus one DEMS gunner. She was also carrying 230 mostly Indian supernumeraries who were travelling to crew other ships. Calabria‍ '​s crew and supernumeraries including four Hong Kong Chinese crewmen and one Danish merchant officer.

Calabria left Freetown in Sierra Leone with convoy SLS-56 to the UK but fell behind. On the evening of Sunday December 8 German Type IX submarine U-103, commanded by the U-boat ace Viktor Schütze, torpedoed her in the Western Approaches about 295 nautical miles (546 km) west of Slyne Head in County Galway, Ireland. U-103 hit Calabria with one torpedo at 2058 hrs and a second at 2106 hrs. All 360 hands and passengers were lost.

Calabria‍ '​s latitude was 52 degrees 26 minutes north, at that time of year the sun would have set just before 1600 hours local time, and the ship would have been blacked out under wartime regulations. However, the moon was waxing gibbous, had risen at 1315 hrs and did not set until 0218 hrs in the small hours of the next morning. If the sky was clear, Schütze would have been able to target Calabria by moonlight.

The oldest man aboard was Calabria‍ '​s chief cook, Santan Martins, who was 79 years old. Martins may have been the oldest merchant seaman killed at sea in the Second World War.

Click HERE for details of 219 people who were on board.

City of Benares ~ 17 September 1940

Pre-war postcard produced by the Ellerman Line
to publicize their passenger service to India.

Found at www.ww2today.com

The City of Benares left Liverpool on September 13, 1940 with 406 people on board, including 90 children who were being evacuated from wartime Britain to Canada. Late that day, in rough mid-Atlantic seas, the U-48 made two unsuccessful attempts to torpedo her. The third shot was successful and City of Benares sank in about 30 minutes.

There was difficulty getting all the boats away. Rescue was still a long way off even for those that did make it into boats or rafts. One lifeboat was missed by HMS Hurricane. The 46 occupants, including six boys, were only spotted by a flying boat 8 days later and picked up by HMS Anthony. In total 248 people died. The loss of 77 children lead to the abandonment of further overseas evacuations.

Dr Peter Collinson was the Medical Officer on board the destroyer HMS Hurricane, which went to the rescue:

"At about midnight on the 17th September, I unscrambled the ciphered signal in which their Lordships commanded H.M.S. Hurricane to proceed with ‘utmost despatch’ to position 56.43 21.15 where survivors are reported in boats. On taking this to Captain Simms, he remarked ‘Utmost Despatch’ I bet this means there are women and children amongst them. Apparently a normal signal would say ‘proceed forthwith’.
   We sighted the survivors at about 2pm. The first raft about 6 ft by 3 ft had two men and a boy clinging to it. These were Eric Davis and John McGlashen who were shielding Jack Keeley, aged 6. As we manoeuvred alongside the raft, I managed to take a photo with my box Brownie, which I later sold to the Daily Mirror for 6 pounds. It has since reappeared in several publications. Unfortunately I was unable to take any more photographs of the rescue, as the survivors needed medical attention.
   All survivors were suffering from severe exposure, and varying degrees of shock, being physically and emotionally exhausted. Some were dehydrated and most were suffering from bruised and sprained bodies, limbs, and suspected fractures. Several had severe swollen legs due to prolonged exposure to sea water, the so called ‘Immersion Feet’.
   Three little boys could not be revived in spite of the valiant efforts of the Petty Officers’ Mess at artificial resuscitation. They were later given a full Naval Burial by the Captain."

[Pictured Left] Royal Navy destroyer HMS Anthony rescues survivors from a lifeboat from the City of Benares which had been been adrift for 9 days after the ship sank. The ship was evacuating children from Britain to Canada under the auspices of the Children’s Overseas Reception Board [CORB] as part of Convoy OB 213 when it was torpedoed and sunk with heavy loss of life in the Atlantic by the German submarine U-48. The sinking became one of the most notorious events of WWII.

Click HERE for details of 265 people who were on board.

Commissaire Ramel ~ 20 September 1940

The Commissaire Ramel was launched on March 20, 1920, and entered service with the Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes on April 24, 1921, as a cargo ship, sailing between France and the Far East.

In 1926 she was refitted in La Ciotat as a cargo-passenger ship, receiving a promenade deck, lifeboat deck and an additional boiler. This gave her the capacity to carry up to 552 passengers. The additional boiler increased her power, giving her a top speed to 14 knots. On January 19, 1927 she returned to service, sailing between France and Australia. In 1933 she was refitted again, with her coal-fired steam engine being replaced with oil-fired steam turbines delivering 6,250 hp.

In 1935 she was transferred to a new route, sailing between Marseille and New Caledonia in the South Pacific, via the Panama Canal. On May 19, 1940 she sailed from Marseille under the command of Captain Sabouret, bound for Tahiti. She arrived at Papeete on June 28, 1940, five days after the signing of armistice between France and Germany that ended the battle of France. On 18 July 18, 1940 she arrived at Suva in British Fiji to refuel, but was requisitioned by the authorities there. She was taken to Sydney, Australia, where 26 members of the crew, including the captain, volunteered to serve aboard.

Under the management of the Shaw, Savill & Albion Line she sailed from Sydney on September 1, 1940 bound for Britain via Cape Town, under the command of Captain R. MacKenzie. Just after midnight on September 19 she was attacked by the commerce raider Atlantis. 

After the crew abandoned ship, they were picked up by Atlantis, who then finished off the ship. Three of her crew were killed and 63 were taken prisoner. Two hundred prisoners taken by Atlantis from several ships were later transferred to the captured Yugoslavian ship Durmitor, and landed at Warsheikh in Italian East Africa on November 22, 1940. They were held in a camp at Merca until liberated by British troops on February 25, 1941 during the East African Campaign.

Narissa ~ 30 April 1940

The SS Nerissa was the last ship built for the Bowring Brothers' Red Cross Line service between New York, Halifax, Nova Scotia and St. John's, Newfoundland. Due to the severe winter conditions expected on her routes, Nerissa was designed with a strengthened hull and icebreaker style sloping stern to cope with ice floes.

She was built in Port Glasgow by the shipbuilding company William Hamilton & Company Ltd. in a remarkably short time; her owners only signed the contract for her construction on November 3, 1925 and she was launched on March 31, 1926 ... in time for the 1926 sailing season. After preliminary trials she departed on her maiden voyage to New York on June 5, 1926.

The Red Cross Line relied mainly on American tourist traffic which was much affected by the Depression. The service was abandoned and at the end of 1928 the Line, and its three ships Nerissa, Rosalind and Silvia, was sold to Furness Withy.

The ships then became part of the Bermuda & West Indies Steamship Co. Ltd. The Nerissa continued on the New York, Halifax and St. Johns route until 1931 when she was switched to the New York to Bermuda. She also made voyages to Trinidad and Demerara.

In late 1939 the Nerissa was modified as an auxiliary transport with accommodation for 250 men and was fitted with a 4-inch gun, a Bofors gun and gun crews drawn from the Maritime Regiment of the Royal Artillery. Due to her capability to steam at a higher speed than the usual 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph) of escorted convoys, Nerissa sailed alone, since she was considered capable of outrunning enemy submarines.

On September 7, 1940, she left Liverpool bound for Halifax, with 34 evacuated children under the Children's Overseas Reception Board (CORB). Their final destination was British Columbia.

By April 1941 Nerissa had made 39 wartime crossings of the North Atlantic. Her 40th crossing began on April 21, 1941 at Halifax, Nova Scotia. She carried 145 Canadian servicemen, RAF and Norwegian Army Air Service personnel, Northern Electric technicians, members of the press and a number of civilians sailing as part of a Britain bound convoy. At 10:15 she separated from the convoy to make her crossing alone, and arrived at St. John's, Newfoundland on April 23, where her captain received his Admiralty orders and she sailed for Britain in the evening.

On April 30 she entered the area patrolled by the aircraft of the Royal Navy's Coastal Command. A Lockheed Hudson aircraft flew over her at nightfall and signaled that the area was clear of enemy submarines. At 11:30 she was struck amidships by a torpedo fired from U-552, 200 miles from her destination of Liverpool. The lifeboats were manned and in the process of being lowered when an explosion split the ship in two, destroying the lifeboats yet to be lowered. U-552 fired an additional two torpedoes to ensure the ship's sinking which had struck together three minutes after the first. 207 civilians, crew and soldiers were killed.

In the short time between the two impacts the ship's radio operator was able to send a Mayday signal along with the ship's position and at first light a Bristol Blenheim of Coastal Command circled the scene. The British destroyer HMS Veteran arrived an hour later at 07:50 and picked up the 84 survivors, who were transferred to the Flower class corvette HMS Kingcup and landed at Derry.

Click HERE for expanded information and passenger list.

Patria ~ 25 November 1940

Before the government of Nazi Germany decided in 1941 to exterminate all Jews in Europe, its policy allowed the reduction of Jewish numbers in Europe by emigration. Jewish organizations, both mainstream and dissident, ran operations that tried to bring Jews from Europe to Palestine in violation of the immigration rules applied by the British government.

This required cooperation with the Nazi authorities, who saw the opportunity to make trouble for Britain as well as to get rid of Jews. The Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung (Central Office for Jewish Emigration or ZjA) worked under the supervision of Adolf Eichmann, organizing Jewish emigration from the Nazi-controlled parts of Europe. In September 1940 the ZjA chartered three ships, the SS Pacific, SS Milos and SS Atlantic, to take Jewish refugees from the Romanian port of Tulcea to Palestine. Their passengers consisted of about 3,600 refugees from the Jewish communities of Vienna, Danzig and Prague.

The Pacific reached Palestinian waters on November 1, followed by the Milos a few days later. The Royal Navy intercepted the ships and escorted them to the port of Haifa. Warned in advance of the ships' arrival, the British Colonial Office was determined to refuse entry to the immigrants. With the security situation in the region improving following British successes in the Western Desert Campaign, the Colonial Office decided it was less risky to provoke Jewish anger than to risk an Arab revolt, and that an example would be made to dissuade other potential immigrants from making the attempt.

The British High Commissioner for Palestine, Sir Harold MacMichael, issued a deportation order on November 20, ordering that the refugees be taken to the British Indian Ocean territory of Mauritius and the Caribbean territory of Trinidad.

SS Patria was an 11,885 ton ocean liner dating from 1913 that the French company Messageries Maritimes ran between Marseille and the Levant. She had reached the port of Haifa shortly before Italy declared war on France and Britain, and then remained in port for safety. After the French surrender to Nazi Germany the British authorities in Haifa first detained Patria and then seized her for use as a troop ship. As a civilian liner she was permitted to carry 805 people including her crew, but after being requisitioned she was authorized to carry 1,800 troops (excluding the crew). She still only had enough lifeboats for the original 805 passengers and crew, so these were supplemented with life rafts.

The refugees from the Pacific and Milos were soon transferred to the Patria for the voyage to Mauritius. The Atlantic arrived on November 24 and the transfer of eight hundred of its 1,645 passengers began.

Meanwhile, Zionist organizations had been considering how to thwart the deportation plan. A general strike had little effect. The Irgun tried unsuccessfully to place a bomb on Patria to disable her. The Haganah also sought to disable Patria, with the intention of forcing her to stay in port for repairs and thus gaining time to press the British to rescind the deportation order. The Haganah officer in charge of the operation was Yitzhak Sadeh, authorized by Moshe Sharett, who led the Political Department of the Jewish Agency in the temporary absence of David Ben-Gurion, who had left for the U.S. on September 22 and did not return until February 13, 1941.

On November 22 Haganah agents smuggled a two-kilogram bomb aboard the ship, timed to explode at 9 p.m. that day. It failed, so a second, more powerful bomb was smuggled aboard on November 24 and hidden next to the ship's inner hull. At 9 a.m. on November 25, it exploded. The Haganah had miscalculated the effect of the charge and it blew a large hole measuring three metres by two in the ship's side, sinking her in only 16 minutes. 

Patria sinking in Haifa port.

When the bomb exploded, the Patria was carrying 1,770 refugees from the Pacific and Milos and had taken on board 134 passengers from the Atlantic. Most were rescued by British and Arab boats that rushed to the scene. However, 260 were killed, 267 were declared missing (over 200 Jewish refugees plus 50 crew and British soldiers) and another 172 were injured. Many of the dead were trapped in Patria‍ '​s hold and were unable to escape as she rolled on her side and sank. 209 bodies were eventually recovered and buried in Haifa.

The surviving refugees from the Patria, together with the remaining 1,560 passengers of the Atlantic, were taken to the Atlit detainee camp. Later, after an international campaign, the survivors of the Patria were given permits to stay in Palestine. However, the other Atlantic passengers were deported to Mauritius on December 9. After the war they were given the choice of where to go; 81% chose Palestine and arrived there in August 1945.

In December 1945 Ha-Po'el ha-Tza'ir ("Young Worker") a Mapai party newspaper, commented, "On one bitter and impetuous day, a malicious hand sank the ship". The comment was written by the deputy editor, Israel Cohen, who did not know that all of the people responsible were Mapai leaders. Angered by the newspaper's comments, some Haganah leaders sent Ben-Gurion's son Amos to the newspaper office where he slapped the editor, Isaac Lofven, across the face.

A bitter debate over the correctness of the operation raged in secret within the Zionist leadership. The decision had been made by an activist faction, without consulting more moderate members according to normal procedure, and this caused serious internal divisions that persisted for many years. An effort was made to enshrine the incident as an icon of Zionist determination, but this largely failed. As early as December 15, 1945 Isaac Lofven warned a Mapai meeting against trying to "sanctify" the tragedy.

Some leaders of the Yishuv (the Jewish community in Palestine) argued that the loss of life had not been in vain, as the Patria‍ '​s survivors had been allowed to stay in the country. Others declared that the Haganah had had no right to risk the lives of the immigrants, as they had not decided of their own free will to become participants in the underground Jewish conflict with the British authorities.

The Haganah's role was not publicly revealed and a story was put out that the deportees, out of despair, had sunk the ship themselves (the version recounted, for example, by Arthur Koestler). For years Britain believed the Irgun was probably responsible.

The Haganah's role was finally publicly disclosed in 1957 when Munya Mardor, the operative who had planted the bomb, wrote an account of his activities in the Jewish underground. He recounted, "There was never any intent to cause the ship to sink. The British would have used this against the Jewish population and show it as an act of sabotage against the war effort". He said that it was in the highest interest of the Haganah to fight the sanctions of the British White Paper of 1939, and the primary objective was to avoid casualties. The British estimated 267 people were killed, but neither the Jewish Agency nor the Haganah could establish how many people escaped the sinking and how many had died.

The guilt-ridden Munya Mardor continued to work at the port in order to remove suspicion from himself. The Haganah also put up an investigative body to find out why such a relatively small amount of explosives could create such a large hole in the ship. The Haganah investigators concluded that the boat's superstructure was in poor condition, and therefore unable to withstand the pressure of the explosion.

Rudolf Hirsch, a Jewish-German writer who had emigrated to Palestine in 1939, was a close associate of Arnold Zweig there, and later remigrated with Zweig to East Germany, published a novel about the incident, Patria Israel, in which he also explicitly refers to Mardor's account.

Rangantine~ 27 November 1940

Liner sunk by German raiders off East Cape

Found at www.nzhistory.net

Survivors of the Rangitane

The 16,712-ton New Zealand Shipping Company liner MV Rangitane was sunk by two German auxiliary cruisers (armed merchant raiders), Orion and Komet, 550 km off East Cape.

The British-owned vessel was the largest Allied merchant ship to be sunk by a German surface vessel during the Second World War (German submarines and aircraft sank many larger ships).

On 25 November the Orion and Komet (cruising with an unarmed supply ship, the Kulmerland) had sunk the little steamer Holmwood off the Chatham Islands, taking its 17 crew and 12 passengers prisoner. At 3:40 a.m. on the 27th the German flotilla intercepted a far bigger prize, the Rangitane, three days out of Auckland bound for the United Kingdom via Panama. The liner had a crew of 201 and was carrying 111 passengers, including Fleet Air Arm recruits and radar specialists on their way to Britain, and a group of British women who had escorted 477 child evacuees to New Zealand aboard SS Batory. A trainee airman, Alan Jones, recalled the attack:

"Half past three in the morning, the clanging of sirens was going, and there were big crashes…. I went up on deck, and there was one of the raiders on each side of us, and the supply ship in front. You could see some of the shells ricocheting off. To hell with that, so we went down below again. I was a bit scared, a bit bewildered. Then there was another salvo and one of the saloons was on fire…. There was the smell of cordite, and the ship would shudder every so often when it was hit."

Seven passengers were killed or mortally wounded, including four of the female child escorts. Eight crew members also lost their lives, including two stewardesses and two brothers who were both engine-room hands. (Many sources erroneously claim there were only 11 deaths, but it was closer to 17) The other 297 passengers and crew were taken aboard the German ships before the Rangitane was sunk.

Most of the captives were later landed on Emirau Island in the Bismarck Archipelago (near Papua New Guinea), from where they were repatriated to Australia in January 1941. A number of merchant seamen and servicemen, including Alan Jones, were taken to Germany and interned.

The Rangitane Riddle, A new book by Trevor Bell

“A rip-roaring yarn, all the better for being true”

The Rangitane was a large, fast, majestic, two-funnelled ocean liner; an icon of the golden age of sea travel. Early in the Second World War she was intercepted at night and sunk by two small, slow, scruffy German raiders disguised as Japanese merchant traders, far from the main theater of war. Why and how did this happen? Was it true that they knew the wherabouts of Rangitane? Were there really secret agents feeding the Germans with information? Had British secret codes been compromised? Why did the raiders sail over a thousand miles out of their way to release the majority of the survivors on a remote British island while others were shipped back to POW camps in Germany? 

This is the riddle of the Rangitane.

The Rangitane Riddle is the true story of the intrigue surrounding the capture and sinking of RMS Rangitane, based on the personal accounts of those involved. It follows the drama of the conflict and the subsequent amazing acts of humanity to the survivors. Described at the time as a ‘rip-roaring yarn‘, it proves that adversity can bring out the best in most people. Or can it? Read how two survivors made enemies of everybody.

Almeda Star ~ 17 January 1941

After WWII broke out in September 1939, the Almeda Star continued to sail her route independently of convoys. On September 29, 1939 off Rio de Janeiro she was met by the Royal Navy cruiser HMS Ajax, which was looking for British and Allied ships to escort northwards because of the threat of German raiders in the area.

On December 22, 1940 Almeda Star was on the River Mersey in Liverpool when she was slightly damaged in an air raid. On January 15 she sailed from Liverpool bound for the River Plate, carrying 194 passengers including 142 members of the Fleet Air Army en route to RNAS Piarco on Trinidad. They were 21 officers and 121 ratings from 749, 750 and 752 squadrons.

Shipping between Britain and the Atlantic had to pass through the Western Approaches, so this area attracted a number of U-boat attacks. On the morning of January 16, the day after Almeda Star sailed, German submarine U-96 had sunk the passenger liner Oropesa in the Western Approaches, killing 106 of the people aboard. At 0745 hrs on January 17, 1941 Almeda Star was about 35 nautical miles north of Rockall in heavy seas when the same submarine, commanded by Kptlt Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock, hit her amidships with one G7e torpedo, causing Almeda Star to stop.

The ship did not immediately sink so U-96 fired again at 0805 and 0907 hrs, hitting Almeda Star in the stern and again amidships. The ship had launched four lifeboats but still had people on deck when U-96 surfaced and opened fire on her with her 88 mm deck gun. Between 0932 and 0948 hrs the submarine fired 28 incendiary shells, about 15 of which hit Almeda Star and started small fires aboard. The fires soon went out, so at 0955 hrs U-96 hit the ship with a fourth torpedo, which exploded in her forepart. Within three minutes Almeda Star sank by her bow.

Almeda Star had transmitted one distress message and the Royal Navy responded by sending seven destroyers to search the area. They found neither survivors, boats nor wreckage: all 360 people aboard were lost, including those in the four lifeboats that had been launched. U-96 had been at the scene for more than two hours but escaped undetected.

Click HERE for details of 319 people who were on board.

Armenia ~ 7 November 1941

Found at www.historyinanhour.com

Hospital ship Armenia torpedoed by the Nazis

On the 7 November 1941, the Soviet hospital ship, the Armenia, was torpedoed and sunk by the Nazis. It was one of the worse maritime disasters in history. All but eight of the 7,000 passengers perished on a ship designed for not more than a thousand. A comparatively modest 1,514 died on the Titanic (1912) and 1,198 on the Lusitania (1915) yet the sinking of the Armenia on 7 November 1941 is all but lost to history.

Sunk in the Black Sea, the exact location of the wreck is still a mystery and for years, the question remained – was a hospital ship, identified by a Red Cross, a legitimate target?

A stricken city

Designed for 980 passengers and crew, over seven times that number had surged onto the ship in the Crimean port of Yalta that fateful night of 7 November 1941. The reason was blind panic. The Nazi war machine, which had invaded the Soviet Union less than five months before, had overrun the Crimean peninsula and was bearing down on Yalta. People expected the city to fall within a matter of hours. The only possible means of escape for its stricken population was by sea – the roads outside the city having been sealed off by the Germans.

Built in Leningrad in 1928, the double-decker Armenia began its career as a passenger ship. In August 1941, following the outbreak of war, it was pressed into military service as a hospital ship. The day before its sinking, the Armenia had left the port of Sevastopol having taken civilian evacuees and the occupants of several military hospitals. Crammed with up to 5,000 passengers, the ship made for Tuapse, a town on the northeast coast of the Black Sea, about 250 miles east. But the captain, Captain Vladimir Plaushevsky, received orders to pick up extra people from nearby Yalta.

More civilians and wounded soldiers, some severely, crammed onto the ship amid scenes of chaos and utter panic. No register was taken, no names recorded of these additional two thousand passengers. Captain Plaushevsky then received orders to remain in port until escort vessels were at hand to chaperon him out. The delay frustrated the captain, he had to get going, they were cutting it too fine.

Torpedoed

The next morning, seven o’clock, the Armenia finally set sail, escorted by two armed boats and two fighter planes.

The escorts were unable to prevent a German torpedo bomber, a Heinkel He-111, swooping-in low and firing two torpedoes at the ship. It was 11.29 am, the ship was 25 miles into its journey. The first torpedo missed but the second one scored a direct hit, splitting the ship into two. The Armenia sunk within just four minutes. All but eight of the 7,000 passengers died, the survivors being picked up by a patrol boat.

The tragedy lay in the postponement of its departure. If Captain Plaushevsky had not lost those precious hours, the ship may well have arrived at its intended destination.

Lying at a depth of about 480 metres, the location of the Armenia wreck remains unknown despite the efforts of oceanic explorer, Robert Ballard, discoverer of several historical wrecks including the aforementioned Titanic and Lusitania.

A legitimate target?

Was the Armenia a legitimate target? As a hospital ship, it was clearly marked with the Red Cross, both on its sides and, clearly visible to the German pilots, on the deck. But it had a military escort, and it had two of its own anti-aircraft guns, so under the rules of war, it was a perfectly acceptable target.

But this doesn’t detract from the catastrophe of its sinking and today we should remember, if only momentarily, the forgotten tragedy of the Armenia.

Rupert Colley

Rupert Colley is the author of The Black Maria, a chilling tale set in Stalin’s Moscow.

Avoceta ~ 25 September 1941

The SS Avoceta was a British steam passenger liner. She was built in Dundee in 1923 and belonged to the Yeoward Line, which carried passengers and fruit between Liverpool, Lisbon, Madeira and the Canary Islands.

Avoceta is Spanish for avocet. Yeoward Brothers had a previous ship called Avocet that was built in 1885 and sunk by U-50 in 1917.

On August 13, 1941 Avoceta‍ '​s sister ship Aguila left Liverpool in OG 71. On August 19, 1941 Avoceta followed, leaving Liverpool with Convoy OG 72. On August 18-23 OG 71 became the first Allied convoy to be attacked by a U-boat wolfpack. OG 72 safely reached Gibraltar on September 4, but there received news that OG 71 had been attacked, 10 ships sank, and they included Aguila which had been lost with 152 dead and only 16 survivors.

From Gibraltar Avoceta made her usual round trip to Lisbon and back (September 2-15). In Lisbon she embarked dozens of refugees from German-occupied Europe: UK subjects who had escaped the fall of France and had been denied leave to remain by the authorities in neutral Spain and Portugal. Most were women and children, some of them of French or Spanish origin, several following their husbands to the UK. Once back in Gibraltar Avoceta also embarked survivors rescued from the loss of Aguila. Her cargo included cork, 573 sacks of mail and some diplomatic bags.

Avoceta was one of 25 merchant ships that formed Convoy HG 73, which left Gibraltar on September 17 bound for Liverpool. HG 73's Commodore, Rear Admiral Sir Kenelm Creighton, KBE, MVO, traveled on Avoceta. In response to the new wolfpack tactic, HG 73's initial escort included three destroyers, one sloop, 8 corvettes and the fighter catapult ship HMS Springbank. At first this was successful: on September 18 a Luftwaffe Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor found HG 73 and signaled its position and course, but on the moonless night of September 21-22 the destroyer HMS Vimy damaged the Italian submarine Luigi Torelli with depth charges and drove her away. On September 22 another destroyer, HMS Highlander, rendezvoused with the convoy and reinforced its escort. On September 24 an Fw 200 patrol aircraft again sighted HG 73, but a Fairey Fulmar aircraft from Springbank drove it off.

The next morning the German submarine U-124 sank the cargo ship Empire Stream. Then on the night of September 25-26 the attack increased. Avoceta was in the first row of the convoy, with the Norwegian cargo ship Varangberg in the position astern of her. At 0031 hrs U-203 fired a spread of four torpedoes from their port side. One hit Avoceta close to her engine room and two hit Varangberg. Admiral Creighton was on Avoceta‍ '​s bridge, and later recalled that when hit "She staggered like a stumbling horse".

Both ships sank quickly, and Varangberg had no time to launch her lifeboats. Avoceta sank by the stern, and her bows quickly rose to such an angle that her lifeboats could not be lowered. However, the liner had three life rafts mounted so as to float clear in the event of a shipwreck, and one of her radio officers survived by clinging to a large piece of her cork cargo that had floated free from one of her holds.

123 people from Avoceta and 21 crew from Varangberg were lost. Avoceta‍ '​s dead included 43 crew, nine Navy staff, four DEMS gunners and 67 civilian passengers, including 32 women and 20 children. The youngest victims were four one-year-old babies. The Barker family, six children under 16 and their mother Ida, died together. Three victims were in their early 70s; the oldest was Ernest Andrews, aged 73. The Reverend Edward Stanley and his sister Elizabeth, both in their 60s, had been returning from missionary work in Vichy France. A Jewish couple in their 60s, Semtov Jacob Yahiel and his wife Luna, had been living in Paris but the husband was a British subject so they were trying to reach relative safety in Britain. Two victims were from British India: Musserwanji Marshall, aged 72, and a young graduate, Saraswati Kitchlu. 

The Flower-class corvettes HMS Jasmine and Periwinkle rescued 40 survivors from Avoceta. Jasmine also saved six of Varangberg's crew who were clinging to rafts and floating wreckage. The merchant ship Cervantes saved another three of Avoceta‍ '​s crew. Avoceta‍ '​s survivors were Admiral Creighton and five of his Royal Navy staff, her Master Harold Martin and 22 of his crew, two DEMS gunners and 12 passengers. A day later U-201 sank Cervantes, killing eight people, but the merchant ship Starling rescued 32 including Cervantes‍ '​ three survivors from Avoceta. Jasmine and Periwinkle landed their survivors at Milford Haven, Wales.

Click HERE for details of 124 people who were on board.

Barøy ~ 13 September 1941

The SS Barøy was a 424 ton steel-hulled steamship delivered from the Trondhjems mekaniske Værksted shipyard in Trondheim in 1929. She had been ordered by the Norwegian shipping company Ofotens Dampskibsselskab for the local route from the port city of Narvik to the smaller towns of Lødingen and Svolvær. After the company suffered ship losses in the 1940 Norwegian Campaign Barøy was put into Hurtigruten service on the Trondheim–Narvik route. 

After surviving the German invasion on April 9, 1940 and the 62-day long Norwegian Campaign that followed it, Barøy was set to assist in the transportation of released German prisoners of war from the Norwegian prisoner of war camp on the island of Skorpa in Kvænangen, Troms. Barøy carried out the mission together with Finnmark Fylkesrederi's steamer Tanahorn, the latter carrying some 200 Germans to Tromsø and Barøy taking the remaining 260 to the same port city. Barøy continued serving in Nordnorge's place during the German occupation of Norway, Nordnorge having been sunk by Royal Navy warships during the Norwegian Campaign after she had been pressed into service as a covert troopship by the invading German forces. Barøy was considered too small a vessel for the longer distances, such as the Hurtigruten route between Bergen and Narvik, and her prolonged service on the route was an emergency measure.

A year and a half after the German invasion Barøy was still sailing the Hurtigruten route as the fifth weekly northbound departure from Trondheim to Narvik. In the early hours of September 13, 1941 she was on her way northwards, and had recently called at Skutvik on her way to Tranøy on Hamarøy. On board the ship was a crew of 26, as well as 105 passengers, 37 of whom were German soldiers. The German troops on board were members of the 197th Infantry Division.

At 0350hrs on September 13 Barøy was struck by a torpedo some 2 nautical miles (3.7 km) west of Tranøy Lighthouse and sank within minutes. The torpedo ripped open the ship's hull, quickly flooding her with water, and immediately knocking out the electrical power on board. Due to the ship sinking so rapidly there was no time to lower the lifeboats, and the people on board had to jump into the water in order to survive. At the time of the sinking the water temperature was 7–8 °C. 

Nazi propaganda posters attempted
to link Norwegian King Haakon VII
to the sinking of civilian
Norwegian ships.

The torpedo that sank Barøy had been dropped by an 817 Squadron Fairey Albacore, one of seven that attacked shipping in the Vestfjorden area that morning. At the time of the attack Barøy had been sailing with full lighting due to work being carried out on the deck cargo. The wreck of the ship rests at depth of around 980 ft.

The first ship to discover the sinking of Barøy was the 762 ton Norwegian cargo ship SS Skjestad, which passed the scene of the sinking on her way southwards and rescued 19 survivors, as well as recovering 15 bodies. The survivors of the sinking were set ashore at Svolvær. Seventy-seven Norwegians died in the attack, including seven children and 21 women. Fifty-nine of the 68 Norwegian passengers were lost, while 18 of the 26 crew members died. Of the 37 German soldiers only two survived.

One of the consequences of the sinking of Barøy, together with the sinking of fellow Hurtigruten ship SS Richard With off Rolvsøy in Finnmark later the same day, was that the Hurtigruten ships would no longer sail further north than Tromsø. Between Tromsø and Hammerfest the route was taken over by smaller replacement ships.

The Nazi regime in Norway used the attack on Barøy, together with other attacks on civilian Norwegian shipping, in propaganda against the Allies. On May 20, 1944 the Nazi-controlled Norwegian Postal Service issued a series of postage stamps commemorating three of the most infamous cases of Norwegian ships sunk by Allied attacks. Barøy was the subject of the 10 øre stamp, while SS Sanct Svithun and SS Irma were depicted on the 15 øre and 20 øre stamps respectively. The shipwreck stamps were designed by German-born Norwegian Nazi propaganda artist and war reporter Harald Damsleth.

Britannia ~ 25 March 1941

The Britannia was built in Glasgow by Alexander
Stephen & Sons. She entered service in 1926.
Found at www.ssbritannia.org.

The SS Britannia was built in Glasgow by Alexander Stephen and Sons. She entered service in 1926. On the 11th March 1941 SS Britannia set out from Liverpool to Freetown, Durban and Bombay. She was originally a passenger ship of the Anchor Line and was operating as a troop ship under the command of Captain A Collie.

The voyage began with the Britannia as a member of a convoy with an anti-submarine escort. By the 25th of March the rest of the convoy had disappeared and the Britannia was on her own. Early that same morning she was attacked by the German Hilfskreuzer (auxiliary cruiser) Thor, a converted merchant ship, under the command of Kapitän Otto Kähler.

The Thor was armed with six 5.9 inch guns and easily overpowered the Britannia. When her single rear 4 inch gun was destroyed Captain Collie gave the order to abandon ship.

Britannia's radio operator had managed to get off an RRR (Raider, Raider, Raider) signal with her location, which was acknowledged by Sierra Leone radio. The Thor picked up radio traffic which indicated that a Royal Navy warship was on its way at speed. In the light of this information, Kapitän Kähler did not stay to pick up survivors.

After giving warning and allowing time to abandon ship, he shelled the Britannia on her waterline and she sank quickly. He heard later that no warship had arrived and that some of the survivors had spent many days on rafts and in lifeboats before being picked up by other ships that happened to be in the area. 

The SS Britannia was carrying service personnel, passengers and crew when she was attacked and sunk. There were 492 people on board, 243 of them survived. The survivors took to the ship's lifeboats and some threw baulks of timber overboard and used them as makeshift rafts. Many died at sea as they waited to be rescued. Lifeboat #5 carried about 50 survivors who were picked up by the Spanish ship Bachi.

The Spanish ship Cabo de Hornos was in the area five days after the sinking and picked up 2nd Lt. Cox, Sub Lt. Davidson and Lt. Rowlandson from the 1st Raft. On board the Cabowas a French Baroness who, with Lt. Rowlandson, persuaded the captain to keep searching. They later picked up Spencer Mynott and Alfred Warren from the 2nd Raft, and survivors from another raft and two lifeboats, a total of 77, who were taken to the island of Tenerife.

67 were rescued by the MV Raranga and taken to Montevideo. Four more survivors on another raft were picked up by another Spanish ship. After 23 days at sea, 38 survivors reached the coast of Brazil on Britannia's Lifeboat Number Seven, having navigated across most of the Atlantic.

Sources differ considerably between the numbers of passengers, crew and survivors. Official sources record 243 survivors out of a total of 492 who set out.

Click HERE to read personal stories ...

Click HERE to read news stories ...

Corregidor ~ 17 December 1941

The SS Corregidor was the Royal Navy seaplane tender HMS Engadine. After WWI, it was returned to passenger service as an inter-island steamship for the Compañia Maritima. On December 16-17, 1941 (around midnight, hence the event straddling two dates), the Corregidor hit a mine off Corregidor Island and sank. Of the 1,200 people aboard, 925 were killed and 275 rescued.

The following excerpt is from the book Life as an American Prisoner of War of the Japanese by Charles Balaza. Mr. Balaza served with Battery K, 59th Coast Artillery on Corregidor and was an eye witness of the Corregidor sinking.

"One night after being relieved from unknown hours of duty (I don't remember if I fell asleep, or passed out from lack of it), my short rest was ended by one of my crew telling me that a ship had just struck a mine in our area.
   Due to the fact that it was our searchlight that controlled this area of entrance from the China Sea into Manila Bay, and part of the North Channel between Corregidor and Bataan, I was very concerned as to what happened. We never received any orders from our command post to stand by for action, or to illuminate the buoy markers for any vessel's safe passage through the minefield. I immediately gave orders to interlock with searchlight #3, which was already in action, helping the rescue operation.
   Just then our phone rang, it was our command post ordering us to illuminate the area where the ship had hit one of the mines. I told them our light was already in action and had the ship in sight. I was ordered to keep the light in action until further notice.
   I looked at the vessel, it had struck a mine near a little island called Monja. It was in a vertical position, with its bow looking up to the heavens of the dark sky, as if begging for mercy by some great unknown miracle to be spared from her dreadful fate.
   In a few short minutes, it disappeared into its murky, watery grave, making sounds like that of a coffee percolator from the bubbling water that was filling its insides. At that moment, I forgot about my loss of sleep and minor problems. Our problems were insignificant compared to the men, women, and children who were trapped in shark infested waters trying to survive. I felt very helpless until I realized that our searchlight played a very important part in the rescue.
   Without our searchlight, the rescue mission would have been hampered by the darkness, making rescue operations more difficult in finding the people who were still alive. There was no moon, and the only light came from a few shining stars. Tired as we were, no one asked to be relieved from duty. We all stayed up until early dawn assisting in the rescue.
   Our concentration on rescuing the remaining survivors was soon broken when we heard what we though sounded like a flight of bombers. A dreadful fear spread among us, but no one suggested putting out the searchlight. We were committed to stay in action until further notice, and committed we stayed. To our joy, the noise that sounded like bombers was PT boats coming from Mariveles Naval Base in Bataan to assist in the rescue operations of the people who looked like little black specks in the distant waters.
   At about 4:30 or 5:00 AM we heard the sound of a fighter plane coming up from behind our position. It came up so quickly that it took us by surprise, and we all ducked for cover. The plane flew by without incident, so we thought it was our one and only plane going to help in the rescue. However, it banked right, and opened fire on Searchlight #3. I don't know why he didn't open up on us, we were perfect silhouette targets for him.
   As daylight broke, we secured our searchlights and could see PT boats circling the area looking for remaining survivors. After we couldn't help anymore, my crew and I passed out from exhaustion. I'm sure we weren't the only crew that had this problem. I was told that I even slept through a bombing that morning without flinching an eyebrow.
   I don't know the true reason why the captain of the SS Corregidor tried getting through the minefields without permission or searchlight assistance. On that dark night he nearly made it, only to strike a mine a short distance from the open sea."

Click HERE for recollections by George Steiger, an officer in Corregidor.

Click HERE for a dramatic account by one of the survivors of the sinking of the ship. From Not So Long. Ago: A Chronicle of My Life, Times, and Contemporaries by Jose E. Romero.

Oropesa ~ 16 January 1941

The SS Oropesa was a British steam turbine ocean liner of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company (PSNC). She was built on Merseyside in 1920 and operated between Liverpool and South America.

October 3, 1940 Oropesa left Liverpool with Convoy WS 3A, which reached Cape Town, South Africa on 27 October. On October 29 she continued from Cape Town with Convoy WS 3, which reached Suez on November 16.

The Oropesa left Suez on November 30 with Convoy BS 9A, which dispersed off Aden on December 5. On December 12 she left Mombasa, Kenya calling at Beira, Mozambique, on December 19 and Cape Town on Christmas Day.

On January 16, 1941 at 0356 hrs Oropesa was southeast of Rockall in the Western Approaches when the German Type VIIC submarine U-96, commanded by Kptlt Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock, hit her in the stern with one G7a torpedo. Oropesa did not sink immediately, so U-96 waited and at 0440 hrs fired another torpedo, but that malfunctioned and went in circles. U-96 fired again at 0503 and 0559 hrs, this time hitting Oropesa beneath her bridge and amidships. The liner capsized and sank at 0616 hrs.

106 people were killed: the Master, Harry Croft, 98 crew, a DEMS gunner and six passengers. The Royal Navy tugs HMS Superman and HMS Tenacity and W-class anti-submarine destroyer HMS Westcott rescued 109 crew, one DEMS gunner and 33 passengers and landed them at Liverpool.

U-96 had been at the scene for more than two hours but escaped before Westcott could detect her. The next morning the submarine struck in the Western Approaches again, sinking Almeda Star and killing all 360 people aboard.

Click HERE for details of 111 people who were on board.

Umona ~ 30 March 1941

The SS Umona was a British cargo and passenger liner. She was built at Sunderland on the River Wear in 1910. She spent her entire 31-year career with Bullard, King and Company and was the second of the company's ships of that name.

Bullard, King gave all its ships African names to highlight its Natal Direct line, which had linked Middlesbrough and London with Durban in Natal Province since 1879 and later with ports in Portuguese Mozambique and elsewhere in the Indian Ocean.

When WWII broke out, convoys protected only part of Umona‍ '​s long route between Britain and the Indian Ocean. There were many outbound convoys that gave merchant ships only a few days escort out of home waters.

On June 22, 1940 France surrendered to Germany, Germany occupied France's entire Atlantic and English Channel coasts and the French Navy was neutralized. The English Channel became more dangerous to Allied shipping, and convoy movements were modified.

At the beginning of 1941 Umona loaded general cargo and joined Convoy EN 57, which left Methil on January 15, rounded Cape Wrath and arrived off Oban two days later. Umona continued south, joining Convoy OB 276 which left Liverpool on January 20 and dispersed at sea on the 25th.

In March 1941 Umona sailed from Durban for London, laden with 1,549 tons of maize, 50 tons of pulses and 47 tons of jam. She called at Walvis Bay in South-West Africa on March 20 and headed unescorted for Freetown to join an inbound convoy. Umona‍ '​s complement was typical of many British merchant ships: her officers and stewards were British, her crew were Muslim Lascars and her carpenter was Chinese. By the time she left Walvis Bay she was carrying 14 passengers including seven distressed British seamen (DBS), i.e. British mariners who had survived the sinking of their ships and were going home.

Late the evening of March 30 Umona was about 90 nautical miles southwest of Freetown when the German submarine U-124 attacked her, hitting her with one torpedo at 2301 hours and another two minutes later. She quickly sank, killing her Master Frederick Peckham, 87 crew, seven DEMS gunners and 14 passengers. The radio officer on duty (Umona had three radio officers sharing duties in a watch system) stayed at his post as long as possible transmitting a distress message, then leaped into the sea.

Umona had managed to launch only one of her six lifeboats before she sank. It was commanded by her fourth officer, 20-year-old Edwin Clarke, but U-124 surfaced, captured Clarke and submerged. After sinking Allied ships Kriegsmarine vessels often sought to obtain intelligence from survivors, and particularly from officers.

Three other survivors managed to board a small life raft. One was the duty radio officer who had sent the distress message. The others were a badly wounded DEMS gunner, EG Elliot RN, and a passenger called Frank Brothers. After they had drifted for four days they sighted a submarine and used the reflective surface of a tobacco tin as a heliograph to attract her attention. The submarine, which may have been U-124, came and gave them fresh water. The next day the weather worsened, and in the afternoon the radio officer died.

On April 7 an escort of Convoy WS 7, the F-class destroyer HMS Foxhound, rescued three Lascar crewmen, apparently from the lifeboat from which Clarke had been captured. Foxhound did not see the raft, which continued to drift. On April 12 the British cargo ship Lorca sighted the raft and rescued Brothers and Elliot. Foxhound and Lorca each landed their survivors at Freetown.

In all, 109 men and two women from Umona died, Edwin Clarke was unaccounted for after being captured and was presumed dead, and only five survivors were rescued.

Click HERE for details of 101 people who were on board.