Hello George
Delighted to hear from you. I visit the most excellent www.usmm.org website quite often, for not only do I usually find information that I am seeking, and often a lot more, but also I know that I can always have a good read of some very interesting features.
The reason for my enquiry on these companies, among the many, that managed/operated vessels for the WSA, is that I am in the latter stages of compilation of ‘The World’s Merchant Fleets 1945’. It is the ‘sequel’ to the 1939 volume, with which I know you are familiar. I am not keen on producing a continuous, and of course very lengthy, list of WSA-owned vessels under the one heading, so decided to go for the next obvious option and list the 4,600 or so relevant vessels under different operating company headings. It would then follow the style in the UK section for managers of Ministry vessels. However, one of the big problems is that neither the ABS record nor Lloyd’s Register books of the period show the managers of WSA vessels. I am therefore relying on contemporary issues of Lloyd’s Shipping Index to come up with the identities of managers/operators. This has been largely successful, but I am still around 400 short of the total in identifying the managers.
Very best regards
Roger