Category: Individual Convoys

A good general account of what can now be seen as a turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic.

KONSTAM, Angus. The Convoy. HG-76: Taking the Fight to Hitler's U-Boats. 320p., bibliog., illus., index. London: Bloomsbury, 2023. ISBN: 9781472857682.

An expert naval historian tells the story of one of the significant convoy victories of the war. An evocative and compelling story

EDWARDS, Bernard. The Cruel Sea Retold: The Truth Behind Monsarrat’s Epic Convoy Drama. 214p., bibliog., illus., index. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Maritime, 2009. ISBN: 1844158632.

A factual account of the convoy(s) that Monsarrat used for his novel in three parts, each describing one convoy. Part One. Convoy OG 71, with 22 merchantmen and eight escorts sailed from Liverpool for Gibraltar on 14 August 1941. Ten ships were lost without a single U-boat being sunk and the convoy had to seek refuge in Lisbon. Part Two. Convoy HG 73 sailed from Gibraltar for Liverpool on 17 September 1941 with 25 merchantmen and 13 escorts. Of these 10 were sunk and only one U-Boat was damaged. Part Three sees the tables turned during the December 1941 HG 76 convoy from Gibraltar. It comprised 31 merchantmen with an escort of 15 warships, commanded by Captain Walker. During a six day running battle five U-boats were sunk for the loss of seven British ships. Also includes an appendix of the personal recollections of one of the officers on HG 73.

LLOYD, Michael. Convoy Ship. xviii, 502p. Livingston: Witherby, 2014. ISBN: 9781856096423.  

A factional account of the journey of convoy SLS64 from Freetown to Liverpool leaving on the last day of January 1941, which suffered multiple attacks. Based on the fictional ss Borrowdale.

EDWARDS, Bernard. The Decoys: A Tale of Three Atlantic Convoys, 1942. xiii, 184p., bibliog., illus., index. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Maritime, 2016. ISBN: 1473887089.

In November 1942, some 600 ships sailed from US and British ports carrying the men and equipment for Operation TORCH in heavily escorted convoys. At the same time three routine convoys sailed with inadequate defence on the normal routes: RB1 and SC107 eastbound from America and SL125 northbound from Freetown. Edwards describes these three in detail and explores whether they may have been used as sacrificial decoys to protect the invasion convoys.

O’BRIEN, David. HX72 First Convoy to Die: The Wolfpack Attack that Woke up the Admiralty. 168p., bibliog., illus., index. Halifax, N.S.: Nimbus, 1999. ISBN: 1551092735.

In 1940 the Frederick S. Fales, a new motor tanker, left Halifax for Europe, as part of convoy HX72. This is the story of the Fales and her crew in a convoy which lost a quarter of its 40 ships.

LUND, Paul, & LUDLAM, Harry.  Night of the U-Boats. 204p., illus., index. London: Foulsham, 1973. ISBN: 0572008287.

Convoy SC7 was badly mauled by the first use of wolfpack tactics in October 1940.  Reprinted in 2010 as I Was There to Face the Night of the U-Boats. (ISBN: 9780572035761).                  

RÖHWER, Jürgen. The Critical Convoy Battles of March 1943: The Battle for HX229/SC122. 256p., bibliog., illus., index. London: Ian Allan; Annapolis: NIP, 1977. ISBN: 0711007497.

A very technical account, fact and appendix filled, of this crucial period in the battle of the Atlantic. An excellent complement to the approach of Middlebrook on the same topic.

A short limited amateur account with some useful detail but nothing new to add.

Coale was an official war artist. This book is at root an account of a voyage in a destroyer escorting convoy HX156. This meant that he was an eyewitness to the sinking of the Reuben James. His return on a merchantman from Iceland is also described and the whole is accompanied by his pictures of these events.

The author was third officer on one of the torpedoed merchantmen and tells the largely unremarked tale of this battle by the Canadian Escort Group C1 to save the battered convoy, which had one-third of its ships sunk. Unusual in that the battle is described from the point of view of the merchantmen, which perhaps leads to the small crop of annoying errors and suppositious statements.

One of the crew of the convoy's small escort raises the question of whether this convoy of ferry boats, which may have looked like troopships, was used as a decoy to allow the passage of troop convoys for the North African landings.

The two convoys sailed in March 1943, the month when the Germans came closest to winning the Battle of the Atlantic. The convoys are examined in depth and while these two have been picked for their own importance, they are also used as examples of the typical hazards, dangers, and successes of the Atlantic convoy system.

In August 1941 convoy OG71 suffered dreadfully on the Gibraltar run. Contains much personal detail from survivors of the convoy which was the basis of a central incident in Monsarrat's famous novel The Cruel Sea.

Looks at the career of U 175 then at the battle around the convoy in which the U-boat was sunk. The author took part in the battle.

The story of a bloody convoy battle told by the escort commander with the benefit of records made available after the war.

This 1944 convoy consisted of small US tugs, barges, and harbour craft and it suffered badly at the hands of the weather. Reprinted by Ensign of Camden, Maine in 1993.

A brutal seven day battle in 1941 between newly trained RCN escorts and 21 U-boats in which some 18 merchantmen were sunk.