Transcribed from several documents received from Roger Griffiths (Advance Sailing Telegram and A 1 form) - His source: Public Records Office, Kew.

The ships are listed in the order in which they appear on the various documents.
Crossed out ships did not sail, underlined ships returned to port.

MOWT = Ministry of War Transport

Notes:
Commodore, Vice Admiral L. G. E. Crabbe R.N.R. was in the Norwegian Montevideo, Vice Commodore was H. Collins in Barrister.

The convoy had 36 ships on departure, 34 were present at local rendezvous.
Average speed: 8.86 knots.

Stanvac Capetown and Darien left convoy for Halifax at 18:00 on Oct. 4 in 44 09N 62 34W.
Thomas Pinckney, whose cargo shifted, proceeded to Halifax at 15:00 on Oct. 4 in 44 06N 62 53W.
El Coston left at 21:00 on Oct. 6 in 46 47N 51 55W and proceeded independently to Iceland.
Fort Townshend and Chateau Thierry left for St. John's at 10:30 on Oct. 7 in 48 25N 50 01(?)W.
Edward L. Shea parted company for Londonderry at 11:45 on Oct. 15 in 55 29N 06 27W.
Clyde section parted company at 12:00 Oct. 15 in 52 27N 06 23W.
Belfast section parted company at 13:00 on Oct. 15 in 55 20N 06 06W.

Carrillo was "very bad at station keeping and nearly always astern of station. Master stated when asked, that he was as close as possible to next ahead (93); at that time he was at least 5 cables astern of her".

Commodore's narrative of voyage:
"14:30 Oct. 2 - Exercised retiring behind smoke float screen by emergency turns.
10:00 Oct. 14 - Exercised and tested close range A.A. weapons of convoy.
On day after leaving New York strong head winds were experienced reducing speed of convoy at times to 6 knots, for the remainder of the voyage until 13th Oct. there was following winds. On 13th and 14th gales were experienced from S.S.E. and S.W. during which considerable damage was done to deck cargoes and convoy was considerably spread out on night of 14th Oct."

The Commodore suggests
"that the B.R.O. New York be supplied with suitable sea and land transport for use of Commodores and staffs.
There should be a reserve of signal ratings at New York for use in Vice Commodore's ship.
There should be a reserve of R/T sets at New York for fitting in Commodore's ship as necessary".

Local escorts from Halifax:
HMS Walker, HMCS Columbia, HMCS Kitchener, HMCS Calgary - left at 18:00 Oct. 4 in 44 09N 62 34W.

Other escorts:
HMCS Montgomery, Witch, Shediac, Dauphin and Brantford joined at 16:15 Oct. 4 in 44 04N 62 46W and parted company at 10:30 Oct. 7 in 48 25N 50 01(?)W.
HMCS Saguenay, Skeena, Wetaskiwin, Agassiz, Galt and Sackville joined at 10:00 Oct 7 in 48 21(?)N 50 07W. The latter 4 parted company at 08:00 Oct 14 in 56 44N 13 44W.

Air escort:
Oct. 1 - Blimps and G boat.
Oct. 2 - 2 G boats.
Oct. 3 - 2 Catalinas.
Oct. 4 - Hudsons and Catalinas.
Oct. 5 - Hudsons and Catalinas.
Oct. 8 - 2 American built Landplanes
Oct. 9 - 1 Catalina for about 1 hour.

Related external link:
Liberty Ships - Several of the ships listed as American in this convoy (and some of the cancelled ones) were Liberty Ships. This site has an alphabetical list of them.

Back to Convoy Index