Lowestoft

Diary of the Second World War – June 1943

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HMS Sargasso

From the point of view of shipping losses, June 1943 – in English waters at any rate – was a quiet month with only two recorded losses. One of those was HMS Sargasso, a yacht requisitioned in 1939 as a danlayer.

At this distance in time, danlayer operations are somewhat obscure so it is worth explaining exactly what a danlayer is, or was. They were primarily small coastal fishing or other craft which were requisitioned the Second World War to operate in tandem with minesweepers, themselves often trawlers.

Minesweeper and danlayer personnel received a common training – there was an officers’ course, which took in Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve officers from Australia, Canada, India and New Zealand, as well as US personnel, Belgians, Dutch and Norwegians. For ratings there was a three-week ‘Hostilities Only’ course ‘so that they may take their places as efficient members of any minesweeping ship, whether she be trawler, drifter, dan-layer or fleet sweeper.’ [1]

The minesweeper-trawler went back to the First World War, but the danlayer is a specifically Second World War concept, and, as a consequence, lost danlayers are also a form of loss unique to the Second World War.

Like minesweepers, they were particularly prone to being lost to unswept mines on the periphery of the swept area, as in fact happened to HMS Sargasso. Girl Helen and HMS Elk, also sank in this way in 1940, but HMS Comfort was lost in a collision in the melee off Dover while coming to the assistance of torpedoed vessels in Operation Dynamo, 1940, and HMS Gulzar was bombed from the air, also in 1940. [2]

The Germans also requisitioned ships as danlayers in a very similar fashion during the Second World War and the Dutch coaster Seaham, ex Oceaan, was commandeered on the fall of the Netherlands for this purpose, serving as Wangerooge. Post-war she was returned to her owners and reverted to the name Seaham, trading once more with Britain. She was lost in 1952 off Lowestoft on the Hull-Rotterdam route. [3]

So what exactly was a danlayer? For every channel that was swept clear of mines by the sweepers, it had to be marked. They were marked by dan buoys, which, according to dictionary definitions, is specifically British English usage. A dan buoy is a ‘small buoy used as a marker at sea’, particularly ‘used as a marker in deep-sea fishing’ or ‘showing the limits of area cleared by minesweepers’, and with a ‘coded flag’ at the top. [4] So the danlayers followed the sweepers as the gulls follow a trawler at sea.

The photograph below shows a danlayer at work in clearance operations in the immediate post-war period.

Historic B&W photo of ship seen in port profile view at sea from the railings of another ship in the foreground. Behind her a marker rising out of the sea can be seen (image can be explored in more detail by following the link in the caption)
‘Making the Seas Safe Again’ The danlayer St Kilda, following in the wake of the sweepers, marks the swept area in the Gulf of Genoa, working from surrendered enemy charts in August 1945.
The dan buoy, with its marker flag, can just be made out astern of the ship. (A 30174)
Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205161352

Of the known danlayer losses of the Second World War within England’s Territorial Sea two have been discovered and charted, HMS Sargasso and HMS Elk (the remains of the latter not confirmed). HMS Sargasso has been identified off the coast of Dorset with weights for dan markers discovered aboard and forming part of the identification process. [5]

Already a rare group of vessels, confined to the war years, few have been identified, and only on this one example is the function of the vessel legible in the remains: the Sargasso has a significance beyond her size.

Footnotes

[1] Ministry of Information, 1943 His Majesty’s Minesweepers (London: HMSO)

[2] Historic England Research Records

[3] Historic England Research Records

[4] Entries for dan in this sense: Collins English Dictionary which notes that this is specifically British English; Concise Oxford Dictionary, 7th Ed., 1982 [Oxford: Clarendon Press]; not in Merriam-Webster [US English]; Danlayer

[5] UKHO 61787

Diary of the Second World War – November 1942

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The E-boats keep coming . . .

Trawler seen in port bow view, with her pennant number 252 in white to left, and land marking the horizon in the background.
HMT Ullswater (FL 20361) at a buoy. Ullswater was lost off the Eddystone in November 1942 while acting as escort for a south coast – Wales convoy. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205121578

The war at sea in English waters in November 1942 was a slightly quieter one than October 1942 had been, and December 1942 would be. For all that the E-boats kept coming (S-boote in German).

On the evening of the 9th the 2nd, 4th and 6th S-boot Flottille, responsible for the loss of several ships of convoy FN 832 off Norfolk in October 1942, opened fire once more on another FN convoy, FN 861, again off the east coast.  

According to Wehrmacht reports, 4 ships from a convoy were sunk, and three ships, two steamers and an escort, were reported damaged. [1] In fact, the only victim sunk on the 9th was the Norwegian steamer Fidelio, torpedoed east of Lowestoft. The steamer Wandle was badly damaged in the same attack, her bows virtually blown off but still partially attached and sinking. Somehow she was kept afloat, albeit awash, and ultimately she reached the Tyne for repair after several days under tow in fog and heavy seas. She would go on to be rebuilt and continue in service until 1959. [2]

On the 15th the British steamer Linwood, on convoy FS (Forth South) 959, struck a mine laid by air off the Long Sand Head in the approaches to the Thames, with the loss of three DEMS (Defence of Merchant Ships gunners). Elsewhere, in the North Sea and the Baltic, similar mines laid by British aircraft accounted for at least 7 ships during the month. [3]

In the early hours of the 19th the six ships of the 5th S-boot Flottille, S-68, S-77, S-82, S-112, S-115, and S-116 located convoy PW (Portsmouth-Wales) 250 off the Eddystone with the assistance of ‘Lichtenstein’ radar apparatus. Most sources state that the attack was carried out by the E-boats alone, but the Merchant Shipping Movement Cards for the three cargo vessels lost in this incident suggest that it was a coordinated E-boat and aircraft attack. [4] That said, there is no explicit mention of attack from the air in the evidence given by the Norwegian survivors of one of the ships on 21 November 1942 at Plymouth before the Norwegian vice-consul though there was a hint by the carpenter, Peder Andersen, that on his lookout he saw a ‘bright light shining down’. [5] The master, Emanuel Edwardsen, introduced his evidence in an understated fashion, stating that he was unable to produce the logbook due to circumstances which would become clear in his account. All the witnesses confirmed that they had felt the shock of not one, but two, successive torpedoes and they were unable to release one of the boats, but successfully got away in the other, to be picked up by a British vessel.

The victims were the former Danish Birgitte now sailing under the British flag, with the loss of 10 crew, the Norwegian Lab with the loss of 3 lives in the stern part of the ship, the British steamer Yewforest laden with steel billets, with 9 crew and 2 of her gunners, and their escort, HMT Ullswater, which was lost with all hands. The four wrecks lie in close proximity to one another and Ullswater is on the Schedule of Designated Vessels under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986. [6]

Like many of her compatriots, the Danish Birgitte had come under the control of the Ministry of War Transport (MOWT), having been seized as a prize and requisitioned by the British authorities at Gibraltar in May 1940 after the fall of Denmark.[7] Lab became one of the famed Nortraships (Norwegian Shipping and Trade Mission), at that time the world’s largest shipping fleet, while Yewforest had spent her career with Scottish owners since being built in 1910. Intended as a steam whaler, Ullswater was requisitioned on the stocks on the outbreak of war and had spent the war on escort duty.

Their attackers can be seen together at Travemünde in May 1942 on this German-language site, 4th image down: from left to right, S-115, S-112 with the Lichtenstein radar antenna visible, and S-116.

In English waters at any rate the rest of the month was quiet, with no further shipping losses.

Footnotes:

[1] Convoyweb; Rohwer, J and Hümmelchen, G 2007-2022 Chronik des Seekrieges 1939-1945 November 1942 (Württembergische Landesbibliothek: published online) (in German)

[2] Central Office of Information 1947 British Coaster: The Official Story (London: HMSO)

[3] Chronik des Seekrieges

[4] Chronik des Seekrieges; Merchant Shipping Movement Cards: Birgitte, BT 389/4/172; Lab, BT 389/38/249; Yewforest, BT 389/32/198, all The National Archives (TNA)

[5] This account is available in English: https://www.krigsseilerregisteret.no/forlis/221161, and click on Sjøforklaring tab

[6] UK Statutory Instruments 2019 No.1191 The Protection of Military Remains Act (Designation of Vessels and Controlled Sites) Order 2019 Schedule 1

[7] TNA BT 389/4/172