There are no ships listed in the 4th row.

2 more ships joined after departure, not included on A 1 form - see comments at end of this table.

Br=British, Da=Danish, Norw=Norwegian, Est=Estonian, Fr=French, Gr=Greek, Bel=Belgian, Pa=Panamanian.

B = Bermuda portion

Gand
general
Bordeaux
(Bel)

Heranger
general
Liverpool
(Norw)

Miquel de Larrinaga and Southern Princess joined the convoy en route, the former at 15:20 on June 29, the latter at 18:30 - w/permission. Not included in this table.

* The Estonian Elna became Ministry of War Transport's Elna II in 1940.

** The French Vendémiaire was, according to R. W. Jordan, seized by the Germans at some point in 1940.

*** President Sergent was seized by the British at Bermuda on July 8-1940.

* Sinbad (ex Hannover) was later renamed Empire Audacity. The Panamanian Rio Grande became the British Empire Blanda on arrival.

** Havsten and Dosinia are crossed out in the AST below but not on the A 1 form. According to A. Hague's listing for HX 51, Dosinia returned to port; Havsten is not included at all in his listing (joined, but returned). See ships in all HX convoys (it'll be noticed that he also has some of the ships in different stations from what is given above. Stations shown for the Bermuda ships above, are the stations they had when in the Bermuda convoy, BHX 51. They may have moved after junction with the Halifax convoy).

Commodore & escort, Bermuda portion:
HMS Ascania, in station between columns 4 & 5 (to be 6 cables apart).

Transcribed from several documents received from Tony Cooper - His source: Public Records Office, Kew.

(Again, compare with A. Hague's listing for Convoy HX 51 at ships in all HX convoys).

Average speed: 9 to 8.5 knots.

Misc. Comments by Commodore:
Station keeping was "not too good", visual signalling, however, was "fairly good". Blairatholl and Manchester Merchant: "V.G. (assuming this means "very good"?) - oscillation bad at times".

X I've received the following in an E-mail from Frank Holden, whose father served on Tahchee at this time:

"The following may be of interest to you and your readers.

My father, Arthur C. Holden, talked very little about his war experience... he spent it in the British flag Vacuum Oil Coy tankers as 1st mate. The ships were in fact owned by Oriental Tankers Hong Kong but were all US owned.

He was in the Tahchee, Charles F Meyer, and John A Brown and one of the only experiences he talked about concerned the Tahchee. He had joined her in Havre in 11/10/37 and was in her continously until he left her in Newport, Mon. on New Years Eve, 1940 (that's from his discharge book... the info re Convoy numbers is from warsailors.com).

Anyway, it seems that for the entire time she was loading fuel oil out of Curacao for Le Havre with only one call in the UK (Soton) in that time.

So she left Southampton in ballast for Curacao on 23 April 1940*.. loaded and joined convoy HX 51 in Bermuda in mid June. Shortly thereafter with the fall of France all the ships bound for France (Tahchee and 5 other tankers) were all sent back to Bermuda where they sat while a decision was made re their future. In Tahchee's case (American owned British flag French navy cargo) the decision was to send her back to Curacao and discharge the cargo. Arrived there ... they had the hoses on ready to discharge... when there was another fuss... who was going to pay the freight...

*Webmistress' note: She had previously arrived with Convoy HX 31. Note also that she's listed as bound for Jamaica in Convoy OA 139 (external link), which left Southend on May 1-1940.

So once that was all sorted out she steamed back to Halifax...still with the same cargo... meant to join SC 6 but didn't, eventually sailed with HX 73 but couldn't maintain speed as the bottom was so foul.... so sent to Bermuda to wait for a slow convoy.

Can't find a record of which convoy she sailed in but think it may have been SC 16 as she finally arrived in Newport, Mon. about 31/12/40. (Webmistress' note: She's not listed in Convoy SC 16, however, she sailed in SC 15).

A few days over 8 months to get one cargo across the Atlantic.....

He reckoned he should have been given Bermudian residency.....

The other ships (all tankers ) in the convoy HX 51 that returned to Bermuda as they were carrying cargoes to France were President Sergent (Br ex French), Vendémiaire (Fr), Taron (Br Shell - similar fate to Tahchee), Havsten (No), and Merope (Fr). When I get time I shall see if I can track down their movements."

Escorts: HMCS French and Acadia, sloop HMS Sandwich, destroyers HMS Vivacious and HMS Versatile, Ocean Escort was Armed Merchant Cruiser HMS Jervis Bay (Commodore states she parted company early in the morning of June 12 [or the 2 might be a 7?], but that cannot be correct, since she was the Ocean Escort).

A. Hague names the following escorts (extracted from this list of HX convoy escorts received from D. Kindell; dates are European style, day/month/year):
Acadia - From 17/06/40 to 18/06/40
French - From 17/06/40 to 18/06/40
Jervis Bay - From 17/06/40 to 28/06/40
Sandwich - From 29/06/40 to 02/07/40
Versatile - From 29/06/40 to 01/07/40
Vivacious - From 29/06/40 to 02/07/40

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