Category: Troopships

An interesting account of the WS5A convoy attacked by Scheer.

Half on WWII and half on the Falklands War.

A comprehensive convoy by convoy account of this major series of convoys carrying troops to the Middle and Far East. Also includes details of the early troopship convoys carrying Dominion forces.

The miserable tale of the anti-Nazi refugees transported to Australia on the Dunera.

A comprehensive guide to the voyages and conditions for the troops. The very readable narrative is constructed around contemporary diaries and official records.

Queen Elizabeth was completed soon after war broke out and spent her first six years wandering the world as a troopship. This period is briefly described.

Contains 40 pages on her wartime career. US title and title of 1971 second UK edition: The Queen Mary: Her Inception and History.

A well-researched account of a revolt by RAF personnel over squalid conditions on the troopship City of Canterbury which they were meant to board at Capetown.

The Belgian liner Leopoldville was torpedoed off Cherbourg on 24 December 1944 with great loss of life to the US 66th Infantry.

The wartime cipher officer of the Aquitania describes how she, Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary operated as troopships. Based heavily on his wartime diaries.

Canterbury was a Southern Railways passenger ferry converted for use as a troopship for D-Day. Limited edition of 150 copies.

A memoir by a member of the Pay Corps, much concerned with a voyage to the Middle East via the Cape in 1940 on HMT P12 - the Empress of Britain.

BLAKELY, Al Ethelred. Convoy to India. 214p. New York: Trilon, 1953.

A black American soldier in a Port Company, with pretensions to being a poet, records his impressions of life on a troopship going via the Atlantic and Suez to India, and of India itself; the whole is interspersed with his poetic gems.  Pseudonym of Alfred Egbert Blake.           

WISE, James E. & BARON, Scott. Soldiers Lost at Sea: A Chronicle of Troopship Disasters. xii, 282p., bibliog., illus., index. Annapolis: N.I.P., 2004. ISBN: 1591149665.

Since the famous loss of the Birkenhead in 1852, many designated troopships have been lost. This is a first attempt at a comprehensive record for all nations and with some account of each sinking.

HUGHES, William Henry. Master Mariner. 96p., bibliog., illus. Wrexham: Bridge Books, 2006. ISBN: 1844940306.

Born in 1886, he went to sea aged twelve. He saw service in both world wars on Irish Sea ferries and was on the RMS Scotia at Dunkirk, where he won a DSC. The book is based on his recorded recollections.

PARR, Claude. A Seemingly Ordinary Man. 160p. Cardiff: Candy Jar Books, 2016. ISBN: 9780993519253.

An autobiography. Aged seventeen he joined the Merchant Navy in 1939. He was sunk on Laconia in September 1942 but survived and was captured and imprisoned by the Vichy French. A good account of a far from ordinary life.

ROGERS, H. C. B. Troopships and Their History. 223p., illus., index. London: Seeley Service, 1963.

 Not intended as an exhaustive study, this is an enjoyable account of some three hundred years of trooping, with a twenty-two page section on WW2.

WYNN, Stephen. The Lancastria Tragedy, Sinking and Cover-Up: June 1940. 184p., bibliog,, illus., index. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Maritime, 2020. ISBN: 9781526706638.

A concise account of the tragedy, based on survivors memories and with a brie3f history of the ship and some background on the post-Dunkirk evacuations from France.

URQUHART, Alistair. The Forgotten Highlander: My Incredible Story of Survival During the War in the Far East. [v], 312p., illus., index. London: Little, Brown, 2010. ISBN: 9781408702116.

A somewhat bitter autobiography. He joined the Gordon Highlanders and went to Singapore on the troopship ss Andes. Captured at the fall of Singapore he worked as a POW on the Burma railroad then was shipped to Japan on one of the “Hellships” in late 1944. The Kachidoki Maru was sunk by an American submarine and he was only rescued after several days on a raft. He was then sent to Nagasaki where he saw out the war. As with many others he was denied financial support post-war because he could not produce documentation about his imprisonment!

Throughout the war this famous lady sang to every troopship arriving at Durban and created an indelible memory on those who saw her. This claims to be an updated and revised edition of a book first published in 1964 in South Africa.

The third volume of the author's autobiography covering the years 1913–1960. Much of it is devoted to WWII in which he commanded first Franconia, but then spent the bulk of the war on over 50 trooping voyages on one or other of the Queens.

An autobiography which covers WWII in 20 pages which condense the fuller and earlier Merchantman Rearmed below.

The author's war memoirs. He was master of the Transylvania when war broke out and after several temporary commands spent most of the war in the trooper Circassia. The illustrations are drawings by his brother Muirhead Bone. An additional signed drawing appears in a limited deluxe edition of 160 copies.

A good solid operational account of their wartime role as troopships.

An illustrated list of American troopships, with details of their war career, it includes British ships which carried US troops on more than one occasion.

Charlewood joined the London agents of the British India Company just before war broke out. In 1941 he went to sea as an assistant purser on the ss Matiana bound for Calcutta. An Atlantic trip followed then Sydney via Panama and on to Calcutta where he joined the trooper Neuralia in January 1942. After a spell trooping in the Indian Ocean Neuralia moved to the Mediterranean and took part in various landings. In 1944 she returned to the UK for D–Day. After a brief spell ashore he went on the ss Pundua to Ceylon, now in the RNVR as a supply officer. An engaging if very personal little tale.

Some reminiscences, enlivened by cartoons, of an OC Troops who served in troopships from 1942 onward. Explains the routines and some of the happenings of life aboard such a vessel.

The author's experiences with an A/A battery serving on troopships. During the year covered by the book, he was involved in the evacuation of France and took part in two major troop convoys, one to Suez via the Cape and one to Freetown.

His memoirs with 30 pages on WWII. These are mainly a series of anecdotes about his experiences as a Chief Officer on troopships in the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean.

The author was an armed guard on liners repatriating Italian civilians and some POWs from Abyssinia. His three voyages in this role in 1942–43 are compressed into one in this account.

A profusely illustrated history and description of this great liner's role as a troopship.

A fictionalised account of a journey on a troopship from England to Port Tewfik via Durban, recorded by a Royal Engineer.

On his father's death in June 1939, he went to train at HMS Worcester. After training he went to P&O and joined the trooper Strathnaver in early 1944, making several trips before war's end.

The troopship Rohna was sunk in convoy by a glider bomb in the Mediterranean with the loss of over 1,100 men, mainly from the 853rd Engineer Aviation Battalion. Republished by Red River Books in 2002 as Allied Secret.

A well-illustrated and detailed account of her wartime role.

A heavily illustrated pamphlet which examines the transport of New Zealand troops overseas.

The autobiography of a ship's doctor. Over one-quarter of the book is devoted to his wartime experiences as surgeon on the liner turned troopship Queen Elizabeth.