S-boot

Diary of the Second World War – January 1944

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The SS Solstad – a Swedish ship torpedoed in Convoy WP 457

It’s hardly attention-grabbing to summarise the facts of a ship’s loss in the headline title. But the more you look at it, the more there is in those bald facts that piques curiosity.

Wasn’t Sweden neutral in the Second World War? Why was a ship from a neutral nation torpedoed? (Neutrals were never immune to loss from war causes: often mines, which struck indiscriminately, but our records show that they were often torpedo targets, too.) What, in fact, was a ship from a neutral country doing in a British-led convoy wholly within British waters voyaging from one British port to another?

The Loss Event

The convoy prefix WP indicates Wales to Portsmouth. On 2 January 1944 the MV Underwood left Liverpool, arriving 3 January at Milford Haven. That day the MV Polperro sailed from Ellesmere Port for Milford Haven, arriving 4 January; at the same time the SS Solstad left Swansea for Milford Haven. On 5 January the assembled convoy finally put to sea from Milford Haven for Portsmouth with their escorts, including the destroyer HMS Mackay and the Isles-class naval trawler (i.e. a purpose-built Admiralty trawler, rather than a requisitioned fishing vessel) HMT Wallasea. [1]

Historic B&W photograph of ship seen in profile with painted blocks of colour breaking up the hull profile. A large plume of black steam issues from her funnel, as she makes her way under heavy clouds in the sky.
HMT Wallasea in dazzle camouflage underway in the Firth of Forth. (FL 9349)
Note that, as was common at this period, the prefixes HMS and HMT are interchangeably used, hence HMS on the original image caption, as shown.
Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205120756

The convoy rounded Cape Cornwall and Land’s End and on 6 January 1944 seven E-boats (German Schnellboote, ‘fast boats’) of the German 5th Flotilla, divided into two flanks, under the command of Kapitänleutnant Karl Muller, were lying in wait to make a surprise attack from the landward. Just before 3am that morning, they opened fire. [2] At 5.25am the ‘resident naval officer at Penzance reported that a convoy had been attacked about five miles south of Treen coastguard hut’. [3] This suggests that the report had come from the coastguard at Treen. Twenty-five minutes later Penlee’s motor lifeboat W and S was on its way in a moderate south-westerly with a rough sea out into Mount’s Bay and on into the Channel. They found two rafts at the position stated, one with two men on it, and the other ten men and two women ‘survivors from the Swedish steamer Solstad, bound with coal from Swansea to London.’

The lifeboat picked them up, ‘made a further search, and found nothing’, radioing for medical assistance shoreside on arrival at 9am. She then ‘put out again and made a further search . . . found only wreckage . . . ‘

There was no sign of the convoy. They must have long swept past, with HMS Mackay having kept the 2nd group of E-boats at bay, while the E-boats themselves were on their way back to base at Brest.

Historic B&W photograph of guns mounted on a swivelling turret with a further gun mounted above on the deck of a ship in harbour. Across the sea in the distance are other ships dotted along the coastline.
Twin 6-pounder guns in HMS Mackay, August 1943, Harwich. (A 18739)
Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205151459

S 136 and S 84 had sunk the Polperro, laden with coal, S 141 the Underwood, carrying ‘Government stores’ on ‘Special Military Service’, i.e. war matériel, S 143 the Solstad, again with coal (1780 tons), and S 138 their escort Wallasea. There was loss of life from all four vessels: Polperro was lost with all hands; at least 13 deaths are recorded from the Underwood; and, although not everyone died aboard the Wallasea, the toll was particularly heavy, with 35 lives lost. Aboard Solstad one of those who died was a stewardess, Alide Reicher; two of the crew who died were, however, British. [4]

A mystery of location

All four are charted wrecks, but, of the group, only Underwood appears to have been positively identified from her propeller boss, approximately 4 miles NW of a cluster of sites derived from the reporting position of of 49˚ 57’N 005˚ 28’W on all three merchants’ Shipping Movement Cards. This includes the Underwood‘s own card, so she at least is not at the position reported therein. [5] HMT Wallasea does not have a Shipping Movement Card, but has also been assigned to the ‘cluster’ position. The Shipping Movement position is likely to have been reported by others in the convoy – the Trade Division Signal for the convoy reported 16 ships, so a fairly large and well spread out convoy – and is likely to be an approximation or aggregate of reported positions from the escorts and/or commodore (lead merchant). [6]

The three charted reports of Polperro, Wallasea and Solstad, clustered around those Shipping Movement Card co-ordinates are all ‘dead’ or ‘disproved’, i.e. do not represent wreck sites but are based on contemporary records, not archaeological remains. In any case, they are clustered around an approximate position, which is also somewhat at odds with the other position quoted, that attended by the RNLI, which at 5 miles south of Treen would be approximately 49˚ 57’N 005˚ 37’W.

Modern location map of Mount's Bay, Cornwall, recreating the lifeboat's journey from Penlee, near Mousehole, and the three location pins as described.
Location map of the events of 6th January 1944, showing how the positions cited are at variance with one another: the lifeboat’s approximate voyage from Penlee to 5 miles south of Treen, where the Solstad was found, is shown. The yellow pin represents the known location of the Underwood, and the red pin the Shipping Movement Record cards’ approximate position for Polperro, Solstad and Underwood, and to which HMT Wallasea is also assigned. It has been proven inaccurate for Underwood, and in the light of the RNLI report, cannot be accurate for Solstad. 
The convoy direction was eastbound.

As we have observed in several of our previous blogs, it is not uncommon for wreck sites to be discovered some way from the location originally reported for all sorts of reasons, and in the case of a convoy the vessels would be dispersed over some distance. The position of Underwood is certainly 5 miles from Treen at approximately 49˚ 59’N 005˚ 31’W, but the bearing is SE of Treen, not south, and the ‘cluster’ location further away on a similar SE bearing.

When the RNLI first attended the wreck in the position given to them, 5 miles south of Treen, they found survivors from one ship, and when they returned they found wreckage, but it is not known how much of the wreckage was Solstad and which, if any, from the other ships – the RNLI report gives no further details. However, the discovery of Solstad‘s survivors suggests that the position reported to the RNLI was substantially correct, at least for that vessel. The lifeboat station at Penlee is on the western side of Mount’s Bay, and the lifeboat would have navigated southwards before rounding the coastline and bearing away to the south-west to intersect with the position given to them off Treen, with Underwood some 3 or 3.5 miles to the south-east as they moved out into the Channel, i.e. the identified position of Underwood now lies NE of the position to which they were bound.

The RNLI report does not mention any sighting of Underwood or any of the other vessels.

When they reached the scene to which they had been directed, they found only survivors from the Solstad; no other ships or survivors are reported (though there were survivors from Underwood and Wallasea, as well as Solstad, presumably picked up in convoy) so this does suggest that the other ships were, like Underwood, lost slightly outside both positions stated, i.e. the one given to the RNLI and the other reported on the Shipping Movement Cards. The loss of life, the fact that Solstad itself was not seen but rafts were, and the lack of any reported sighting of the other three by the lifeboat en route or at scene suggests that all four sank very quickly.

Modern colour photograph of wooden war memorial plaque with text picked out in gold, naming the men of the MV Polperro and the date of loss, mounted on the roughcast wall of a rural church.
Plaque to those killed in the MV Polperro, St. Wynwallow, Landewednack, Cornwall.
© George Pritchard (WMR-50769) https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/50769

Can we reconstruct the convoy and the relative positions of the ships? The E-boats attacked from the landward side. Underwood at least might well have been on the port and landward flank of the convoy. As Solstad was at the position reported to the RNLI, then she was astern and to the south-west of the known position of Underwood. It is hard to see how HMS Mackay held off further E-boat attack without being astern and to the west of the convoy, so close to Solstad, perhaps, and similarly Wallasea might have been the escort on the seaward flank.

Both the Merchant Shipping Movement Cards and the position off Treen reported to the RNLI either give or come out at the same latitude of approximately 49˚ 57’N, suggesting some accuracy at least to that half of the co-ordinates, potentially the starboard and seaward flank. It seems reasonable to suggest that the three unattributed wrecks in this convoy may therefore lie in an arc roughly bounded by the present position of Underwood to the north-east and the reported position of Solstad to the south-west.

The Solstad‘s loss report sheds no light on the matter, as it states ‘Sunk owing to war causes off South-West England about 6th January, 1944.’ [7]

Another mystery . . .

But to get back to the questions we asked at the start of the blog – what was Solstad doing there in the first place? Why is there a neutral Swede in a British convoy? The answer lies in Sweden’s statement of neutrality on the outbreak of the Second World War, and the measures then undertaken by the Allies and other neutrals in the early years of the war both in terms of trade and any agreements made with Germany, such as transit agreements for the occupation of Norway. For example, in early 1940, even before the entry of the United States into the war, President Roosevelt prevented the export of aircraft and engines to Sweden to prevent them falling into German hands, and Britain likewise blockaded Swedish transatlantic traffic. [8]

Relations between the Allies and Sweden were therefore somewhat strained, but in April 1940 Germany blockaded the Skagerrak, the sea between Denmark, Norway and Sweden, in tandem with the invasion of Denmark and Norway – at stroke depriving Sweden of nearly 600,000 tons of shipping which could no longer return to their home ports. It was an opportunity, therefore, for the Allies to procure much-needed shipping on time charter (i.e. being leased for a fixed period of time, rather than per voyage). Here was where commerce could improve relations and diplomatic outcomes. [9]

Map of Denmark, Sweden and Norway, centred around the shared sea of the Skagerrak. The blockade ensured that Germany controlled access to the North Sea, to the west of Denmark and Norway, and the Baltic Sea, to the east of Denmark and south of Sweden.
Location map of the Skagerrak: the German blockade prevented westbound access to the North Sea and eastbound access to the Baltic.
Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 3.0

The avenues open to the Allies for the ships of occupied nations did not apply in the case of neutral and unoccupied Sweden. However, commercial deals could be struck to mutual advantage: cash for Sweden, ships for Britain. Britain’s tonnage agreements with Scandinavian powers during the First World War were once more being played out in a different guise in this second conflict.

On 8 April 1940, Solstad‘s Shipping Movement card shows that she was in Burntisland, and therefore formed part of this group for which a commercial deal had been struck: although, unusually, her card shows all her movements from March 1939 onwards – before the war. Quite why has not yet been established, but it is a curious detail.

She was then allocated to the French on time charter to join a French convoy bound for the French Mediterranean port of Sète, and was ‘delivered at Methil’. After the fall of France in May 1940, Solstad was intended to return to the UK, but instead seems to have ended up in Casablanca in neutral Morocco, at that time a French colony under the control of the Vichy government. Thence she made her way to Barcelona, where her French time charter was transferred to Britain’s Ministry of War Transport (MOWT) from 20 July 1940.

Thereafter she worked UK to Spain and Portugal, both of which were also neutral, albeit under Fascist regimes: trade remained possible, albeit overshadowed by war. An Allied oil embargo aimed to prevent Spain joining the war on the Axis side, while Portugal preserved the ancient Anglo-Portuguese alliance and relations with Spain by remaining neutral without ever formally declaring neutrality. [10]

During this period of operations Solstad was sub-contracted to Welsh coal firms for iron pyrites. [11] Anglo-Iberian trade in the Second World War is not readily legible in archaeological remains in English waters, except for a handful of wrecks from the early years of the war. This history remains somewhat obscure from both the archaeological and documentary points of view, so there is little comparable context for the Solstad‘s early wartime history under MOWT. We can, however, say with certainty that the archaeological and documentary record reveals no Portuguese or Spanish wrecks in English waters during the war – unlike the pre- and post-war periods. [12]

For ships in convoy calls to other ports elsewhere on the Iberian peninsula were slated as to or from Gibraltar, somewhat obscuring their movements and trade. It is only by looking at the cargoes or the intended calling points if reported in convoy, and the Shipping Movement Cards, that slowly reveal the picture. In that regard, the convoys for HG 41 (Homeward – Gibraltar) of August 1940 and OG 73 (Outbound – Gibraltar), August-September 1941, in both of which Solstad participated, display more of the extent of the trade than the remains in English waters demonstrate. [13]

This is fairly unusual, as the numbers of wrecks for a given period and trade are usually reasonably proportionate to, or correspond well chronologically with, the ebbs and flows of that trade. [14]

Quite a few Swedish ships participated in these voyages – whether this is coincidental, as British-owned ships also made these voyages, or whether neutral ship to neutral nation voyages could facilitate matters, is an interesting question.

We know that while on time charter to the MOWT, the vessel continued in Swedish ownership and management – her Shipping Movement Card makes her nationality clear, supported by a survey report in December 1943, and her casualty report only a few weeks later, revealing that she belonged to Rederi AB Solstad in Stockholm, and the Swedish name of the company manager. [15]

After her last voyage to Spain in September 1941 to pick up iron pyrites, Solstad then made her way along the Spanish coast to join a 56-strong convoy of merchants with their escorts out of Gibraltar, departing on 2 October 1941.

She was then reassigned once more to British coastal convoys, and it was after just over two years of such duties, wholly within British waters, that she was finally sunk in January 1944.

Accounts of the loss event from several German-language sources based on primary material transcribed from E-boat logs, bring out another intriguing detail. They state that the Solstad was niederländisch or Dutch, but also state that the British Polperro was Swedish. [16] It is unclear whether there was a Dutch ship in the convoy – there may well have been, as many Dutch ships escaped, were transferred to the MOWT, and operated in British convoys – but we do not know all the ships involved in WP 457. Were nationalities simply swapped around in error at the time – which seems likely if Swedish nationality was attributed to a British vessel – or is there something more substantial behind this?

Solstad‘s history is thus peppered with slightly unusual details. It is a history which bears witness to the dance of the nations in time of war: a complex web of commerce, diplomacy, and warfare, which affected the ship’s operations and culminated in her loss.

Footnotes

[1] Registry of Shipping and Seamen: War of 1939-45: Merchant Shipping Movement Cards BT 389/42/240 Solstad (The National Archives, Kew) Catalogue entry; convoyweb

[2] Knifton, J 2015 “A very cunning Kapitän’, johnknifton.com, published online; Förderverein Museums-Schnellboot e.V. nd S-Boote in der Kriegsmarine 1935-1945: Die Kriegschauplätze der S-Boote: Englischer Kanal 1944 (in German) Förderverein Museums-Schnellboot e.V. published online

[3] RNLI, 1944 “Services by the Life-boats of the Institution, by Shore-boats and by Auxiliary Rescue-boats during 1944”, Lifeboat Magazine (RNLI: republished online)

[4] Knifton 2015; Merchant Shipping Movement Cards, Underwood, BT 389/31/3 (The National Archives, Kew); Commonwealth War Graves Commission records https://www.cwgc.org/

[5] United Kingdom Hydrographic Office: Underwood, UKHO No.22680; Polperro, UKHO No.22553; Solstad, UKHO No.22529; and HMT Wallasea, UKHO No.22549; Merchant Shipping Movement Cards, Polperro, BT 389/24/23; Solstad, BT 389/42/240, and Underwood, BT 389/31/3 (The National Archives, Kew)

[6] Convoyweb

[7] Lloyd’s Register Foundation Report of Total Loss, Casualty, &c. No.33528, January 1944, LRF-PUN-W217-0080-R

[8] Montgomery, V 1985 The Dynamics of British Policy towards Sweden, 1942-1945 (King’s College London: PhD thesis, online at the King’s Research Portal https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/; Olsson, U 1977 The Creation of a Modern Arms Industry, 1939-1974 (Gothenburg: Institute of Economic History, Gothenburg University); Committee on Military Affairs, 1945 Elimination of German Resources for War, Hearings before a Subcommittee on Military Affairs, United States Senate, Part 5: Testimony of Treasury Department: July 2, 1945 (Washington: United States Government Printing Office)

[9] Montgomery 1985; Lottaz P and Ottosson I, with Edström, B 2022 Sweden, Japan and the Long Second World War 1931-1945 (London: Routledge)

[10] Rockoff, H & Caruana, L 2000 A Wolfram in Sheep’s Clothing: Economic Warfare in Spain and Portugal, 1940-1944, Working Paper, No.2000-08 (Rutgers University, Department of Economics, New Brunswick, NJ) doi: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/94297; Leite, J da Costa 1998 “Neutrality by Agreement: Portugal and the British Alliance in World War II” American University Law Review, Vol. 14, No.1 (1998): 185-199 Digital Commons; Trowbridge, B 2016 “History’s Unparalleled Alliance: the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of Windsor, 9th May 1386”, gov.uk blog published online. There is other evidence of Portuguese help, or at least friendly neutrality, during the war: for example, Convoy OG 91 [Outbound – Gibraltar] in 1941 took refuge at Lisbon following an attack in the Atlantic.

[11] Registry of Shipping and Seamen: War of 1939-45: Merchant Shipping Movement Cards BT 389/42/240 Solstad (The National Archives, Kew)

[12] Source: Historic England wreck records

[13] Convoyweb: HG 41 and OG73

[14] Source: Historic England wreck records

[15] Lloyd’s Register Foundation, Report of Survey for Repairs &c. No.54854, Solstad, December 1943, LRF-PUN-W217-0082-R; Report of Total Loss, Casualty, &c. No.33528, January 1944, LRF-PUN-W217-0080-R

[16] Dutch nationality attributed to Solstad in Chronik des Seekrieges 1939-1945 Januar 1944 (Württembergische Landesbibliothek: published online) (in German) and Lebenslauf S-143 (Historisches Marinearchiv; published online) (in German); although Förderverein Museums-Schnellboot e.V. (published online: in German) correctly attributes Swedish nationality to the Solstad.

Diary of the Second World War – April 1943

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Eskdale: The E-boats strike again

Contemporary black and white photograph of ship, bows to left foreground with riverside buildings in the distance at left.
Eskdale seen on the Mersey in a disruptive paint scheme, possibly around the time of launch in March 1942.
(FL 9757) Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205120800

The names of ships matter – they are carefully thought out to display a naval or shipping company heritage, while ships may be renamed for political reasons, as many were in the redistribution of former German ships after the Treaty of Versailles.

Eskdale was a Type III Hunt-class destroyer built under the 1940 War Emergency programme at Cammell Laird, Birkenhead. She became one of three Hunt-class destroyers loaned immediately on completion in 1942 to the Kongelige Norske Marine (Royal Norwegian Navy, also known as the Free Norwegian Navy), her command being assumed by Skule Storheill who would go on to be decorated by not only Norway and the United Kingdom, but also France and the Netherlands, for his war service. (1)

The blog has previously covered the wrecks of Norwegian merchant vessels which were taken into British service during the First World War (see, for example, this post on August 1917) but here the reverse is also true: here are British ships taken into the service of the Norwegian Navy in exile. The Royal Norwegian Navy had escaped in June 1940 after the fall of Norway, along with the King of Norway, Haakon VII, and the government, and would be based in Britain for the duration of the war. Three of the Hunt-class destroyers were loaned to the Royal Norwegian Navy, the first, HMS Badsworth, being renamed Arendal.

It is not clear whether the choice of Eskdale and Glaisdale for the Royal Norwegian Navy had any greater significance than being ships that could be made available for the numbers of volunteers and refugees which swelled the numbers of the Norwegian Navy as time went on, but it would be unsurprising if there was a subtle but reciprocal diplomacy at work: the dale or valley (of Old Norse origin) in those names corresponds to the -dal element of Arendal, so the names were a nod to a common heritage and the compliment was returned by the two ships retaining their English names in Norwegian service. (2)

A group of four Norwegian sailors on board ship making a fuss of a cat and dog. Behind them the ship's funnel blows smoke and the Norwegian flag flies.
Crew of the Eskdale, their cap tallies reading KGL NORSKE MARINE (Royal Norwegian Navy) photographed 27 February 1943, a few weeks before the loss of their ship. This was an official Admiralty photograph intended for publication, as part of the original caption shows: ‘Norway with its long sea tradition has many of her sons fighting alongside the Allies in the battle for freedom. Norwegian sailors with their ship’s cat named Petra and Peggy, a dog visitor who goes on board whenever the ship makes port’
(A 14723) Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205147868

For the next year Eskdale and Glaisdale were primarily on convoy operations as escorts, in the Arctic and Channel, but also deployed on operations elsewhere at need. Over January to April 1943 they became regulars on the Portsmouth to Milford Haven run and back, sometimes together, sometimes on separate PW (Portsmouth-Wales) and WP (Wales-Portsmouth) convoys. Under wartime restrictions photograph locations would not be published, but we can see from convoy movements that Eskdale was back in Portsmouth on 27 February, so it seems likely that Peggy the dog as shown in the photograph above this paragraph was a Portsmouth resident! (3)

Both ships were worked hard, returning to Portsmouth as part of convoy WP322 on 12 April 1943, leaving Portsmouth again for Milford Haven on 13 April 1943 with six merchants, and a combined Norwegian-British trawler force as escort reinforcements. Off the Lizard the convoy was targeted by the 5th S-boot Flottille, which was using St. Peter Port, Guernsey, to refuel on its Channel operations at this time. (4)

At 3 o’clock in the morning S 90 fired two torpedoes at Eskdale in a position ENE of the Lizard, with S 65 and S 112 finally sinking her. Out of a crew of 185, 25 men, all Norwegian, lost their lives. (5) The ship has been identified in the position stated at the time of loss with her stern blown away in two separate sections, listing to starboard and evidently well collapsed. She lies near one of her charges from this convoy, the British cargo vessel Stanlake, attacked in a very similar fashion, initially torpedoed by S 121 and then finished off by S 90 and S 82. (6)

The two ships lie close together, a tangible reminder of a time when ‘Home Waters’ for British ships would be the temporary ‘home waters’ for other naval forces.

Two men stand either side of four cannon pointing right and upwards to the sky
27 February 1943: Norwegians at action stations stand by on a pom-pom used for anti-aircraft action on board their destroyer HMS Eskdale. A few weeks after this photo was taken the attack came, not from the sky, but from an E-boat.
(A 14726) Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205147870

Footnotes:

(1) Mason, G 2004 Service Histories of Royal Navy Warships in World War 2: HNoMS Eskdale (L36) (published online); Wikipedia, Skule Storheill

(2) The diplomatic dance of nomenclature appears to have continued with the formal post-war sale of Glaisdale to the Norwegian Navy, whereupon she was renamed Narvik, which no doubt evoked on both sides the Royal Navy’s participation in the Battle of Narvik only a few years previously.

(3) Convoyweb, movements of PW and WP convoys; movements of Eskdale and Glaisdale

(4) ibid; Rohwer, J and Hümmelchen, G 2007-2022 Chronik des Seekrieges 1939-1945 April 1943 (Württembergische Landesbibliothek: published online) (in German); Historisches Marinearchiv Lebenslauf S 90 (online: in German) Brown, D 1990 Warship Losses of World War Two (London: Arms and Armour)

(5) World War 2 at Sea: Royal Norwegian Navy, Ship Histories, Convoy Escort Movements, Casualty Lists 1940-1947 (nd: published online)

(6) Eskdale: Hydrographic Office 17429; Stanlake: Hydrographic Office 17430 and 17504

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

Diary of the Second World War – October 1942

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Convoy Battle!

The summer of 1942 had seen two key convoy battles – Arctic convoy PQ17 which battled through during the first half of July to Archangel and Murmansk with the loss of two-thirds of its ships; and Mediterranean convoy WS21S of August, in which victory was snatched from the jaws of defeat by delivering the tanker Ohio to the relief of Malta.

It is these famous incidents, and others like them, which we tend to think of when we consider convoy battles of the Second World War – yet convoy battles were an everyday reality and took place not only ‘over there’ during the Battle of the Atlantic and in the foreign theatres of war, but ‘in home waters’ also around the coasts of Britain.

Every convoy was a potential battle.

In the early hours of 7 October 1942 three groups of E-boats were lurking off Cromer to intercept any passing convoys. The term ‘E-boat’ is a linguistic legacy in English of the Second World War: ‘E-boat’ (‘Enemy boat’) referred to the German Schnellboot or S-boot (‘fast boat’), broadly equivalent to an Allied motor torpedo boat, so the terminology differs between British and German sources.

E-boats and E-boat Admiral surrender, 13 May 1945, HMS Beehive, Felixstowe. (A 28559) Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205159904

Out of the three E-boat groups present that day, the 2nd S-boot Flottille, with six craft, and the 4th, with three, found a target in convoy FN (Forth North) 832, an east coast convoy from the Thames for Methil, Scotland, with a Trade Division Signal report of 26 ships. Shortly after 4.30 in the morning they opened fire on FN 832. [1]

Some 10 or so miles NE of Cromer lie the remains of some of the convoy, all securely charted since the day they sank in 1942. {2] To seaward lies the remains of ML 339, a British motor launch of Fairmile B type that became a versatile multi-function asset used in several roles and theatres of war, particularly as a submarine chaser.

ML 340 seen in port view with troops on board, off Skiathos, Greece. (A 26457)
Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205119921

Around half a mile to port of ML 339 lie the remains of the Jessie Maersk, a British freighter under the control of the Ministry of War Transport (MOWT). As her name implies, she originally belonged to the Danish shipping line of Maersk, whose ships are still a familiar sight in ports around the world.

In 1940 Jessie Maersk had been at sea with a cargo bound for London when Denmark fell under Nazi occupation, and on that voyage was ordered over the wireless by the new regime to put into a neutral port. The master decided initially to put into an Irish port, but, as more information came in, the crew mutinied, took charge of the ship, and put her instead into Cardiff. There the master lodged a complaint with the police, who arrested the crew, but it did not quite end as he clearly expected. Far from being had up before a British court for mutiny, the crew were released by the British authorities with thanks for their action, and the Jessie Maersk, as with so many ships from Nazi-occupied countries, came under the auspices of the MOWT. (On her final voyage two years later she would be crewed by both British and Danish sailors. [3]) By contrast, in 1940, the possible internment of the master as an enemy alien or enemy sympathiser was discussed at Parliamentary level – in the Commons. [4]

Jessie Maersk had an eventful, if not positively hard, war, with a litany of incidents necessitating repairs – collisions in convoy, aircraft damage, and groundings, before being torpedoed and sunk on that day in October 1942. [5]

Another half a mile to port again lie the remains of HMS Caroline Moller, an Admiralty tug, i.e. one requisitioned from civilian service to act as a rescue tug. On the seabed the three ships appear at regular intervals, as if keeping station as they did so long ago in convoy above, with ML 339 still in her protective position guarding against seaward attack on the starboard flank.

Ships lost from the same convoy naturally frequently lie in close proximity, sometimes very close together, but to see three ships in a clear pattern on the seabed, a similar distance apart, is slightly more unusual. This pattern seems consistent with the rapidity of the simultaneous attack from multiple E-boats, and suggests that their victims all sank equally rapidly.

The British coasters Sheaf Water and Ilse were also damaged in the attack, and dropped out of the convoy, returning under tow to the southward. The damage they had sustained overwhelmed them as the turned back, and they too also now lie relatively close to one another, but as a distinct group, some distance from their convoy sisters. [6]

The Merchant Shipping Movement Card for Sheaf Water reveals what we would now call a ‘live feed’ or a ‘real-time update’ in red ink: ‘Torpedoed by E-boat between 57F and 67B buoys [of the swept War Channel], 7.10. Badly holed, now anchored Sheringham buoy. (8.10) Vessel now partly submerged. Report 9/10 states: only two masts visible high water. No further action will be taken (10.10). Now in about 8 faths [fathoms], salvage not practicable. (5.12)’ [7]

This was the second major incident in the Ilse’s wartime career. On a similar convoy voyage from Southend for the Tyne in June 1941, she had struck a mine on the 20th off Hartlepool. She seems to have gone down by the bows as her Shipping Movement Card notes: ‘the after end of the vessel floatable. Fore end constructive total loss.’ The stern half arrived at Hartlepool 10 days later and was docked, before being taken up the river to Middlesbrough for repairs, where a new forepart was built on, and by February 1942, she was back on the east coast convoy run. She was ‘presumed torpedoed by E-boat’ between the same two buoys as Sheaf Water. She then ‘sunk in tow’ (8.10) and by the 12th October she was ‘Submerged 2 mls [miles] E of Haisboro, 4ft of mast above water at low water spring tides.’ Salvage was also dismissed ‘not practicable’ on 5 December. [8]

The Ilse herself is thus also an unusual wreck, where parts of the same ship are charted in two distinct locations from different wreck incidents a year apart. [9] (In a previous blog, we’ve covered the loss of the Nyon, 1958/1962.)

We can see that the events of 7 October 1942 resulted in archaeological patterns not always seen on the seabed as a result of convoy attacks, in which ships scatter, take evasive action, drift after being struck before finally sinking, return fire, cover for other ships in convoy, put themselves in the line of fire in rendering assistance, or are attacked several times over the course of a voyage, with separate losses in quite different locations. On that day it seems that the E-boats swept in with such speed there was little time to return fire, resulting in three ships sinking together in short order and two that sank shortly afterwards as they turned back.

It was less a convoy battle than a devastating ‘hit and run’ raid leaving an archaeological legacy which forms a memorial to the lost crews. That archaeological legacy also preserves in lasting and concrete form some rather less tangible things: firstly, the locations of the buoys marking the swept War Channel, against which all the attacks were recorded, and which naturally disappeared after the war; secondly, it would appear, the disposition of the convoy relative to one another as they turned north-west on their voyage.

Crew of the Pole Star refuelling a war channel buoy, seen from HM Trawler Stella Pegasi. (A 18188) Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205150957

Footnotes:

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

[2] United Kingdom Hydrographic Office: ML 339 UKHO 9243; Jessie Maersk, 9238; HMS Caroline Moller, 9231

[3] Daily Herald, 22 April 1940, No.7,546, p10; widely reported in national and regional press

[4] Hansard, House of Commons Debate 30 April 1940, Vol.360, c.541

[5] Merchant Shipping Movement Card, Jessie Maersk, BT 389/17/22, The National Archives

[6] United Kingdom Hydrographic Office: Sheaf Water, UKHO 10554; Ilse, 10562

[7] Merchant Shipping Movement Card, Sheaf Water, BT 389/26/230, The National Archives

[8] Merchant Shipping Movement Card, Jessie Maersk, BT 389/16/65, The National Archives

[9] United Kingdom Hydrographic Office: UKHO no. 5624 (section, off Hartlepool, 1941); UKHO 10562 (off Cromer, 1942)