Hi everyone, Perhaps someone can educate me on a specific issue. For a British transport requisitioned into military use during WWII, how should one think about the role of the (civilian) ship Master, as opposed to the senior Royal Navy officer aboard the ship. Does the fact that the ship was requis...

Hello fellow ship enthusiasts, My apologies for an off-topic post. I'll be visiting the Netherlands in a few weeks. Just wondering if anyone can recommend a trip to Het Scheepvaartmuseum. Is this worth a special visit? Generally I like maritime museums and I'd assume one in the Netherlands would hav...

Thanks. We really appreciate all that you do to keep the forum going. Well done!

Hi everyone, In the second half of 1943 and in early 1944 the Allies ran a series of convoys to bring troops from the US to the China-Burma-India theater via the Mediterranean. (Routes via Australia were also used.) US transports would ferry US Army personnel to Oran. From there they would be transp...

Thanks. Here is the context... I just read through about 150 reports from survivors of a sinking of HMT Rohna, in which over 1,000 American servicemen were killed. The surviving crew members of the ship evidently launched a lifeboat for themselves and abandoned the vessel immediately after it was hi...

Indeed. Many thanks. I first met Michael Walsh 12 years ago when I presented the history of German radio-guided anti-ship weapons to the survivors of the Rohna attack, and their families. There is a documentary coming out about this. It will be released in November. I spent a few hours being intervi...

A question for those who know of such details... For a troopship operating in WWII, how big of a deal would it be to have rust on the chains, blocks, and davits used for lowering lifeboats? Could the rust effectively lock the system so that the lifeboat could not be lowered? Are there mechanisms and...

Thanks. I had already searched the Hague convoy databases but not (yet) the ports database. Very helpful. I have a complete list of ships now in the actual KMS-26 convoy. At this point, I suspect the five US troopships arrived to Oran in convoy UGS-21 but I can't find a list of those ships in the va...

Hi folks, I will be interviewed on camera for a forthcoming documentary about the loss of HMT Rohna in KMS-26, which represents the largest loss of life of US military personnel at sea due to enemy action (1,105 soldiers). While my role in the documentary is centered on the Luftwaffe units and weapo...

I checked. My original post was in error. The communication I had with the individual in Vladivostok was in 2002, not 2012. Therefore, it is consistent with the ship being broken up in 2003.

Thanks. I'll have to go back and check my notes on the dates. I might have been mistaken.

Hi,

The Liberty Ship Odessa was seen laid up in Vladivostok as late as 2012, according to my information. I'm told it has since been scrapped. Does anyone have specific information on when it was scrapped? Thanks.

Marty

My information is far less comprehensive that that provided above, but I offer it just in case... 1903 Completed as CAROL 1er (Louis Dreyfus Armateurs) 08.03 1923 ARLON (Cie. Transatlantique Belge) 1926 REMENHAM (Britain Steamship Co., Ltd.) 1932 LENNUK (Karl Pool) 1933 LENNUK (Karl Jürgens) 1935 EL...

Indeed. Thank you. I have reviewed every conceivable source of information on this, from the records of the Cuban Revolutionary Party to several PhD theses written in the 1960s on the topic. There is zero documentary evidence that Mascot was on a filibustering mission. I've written a detailed 15-pag...

Hi, Several news reports have surfaced of German ships scuttled in 1944 in the Danube having recently been exposed by falling water levels. Some (including the famed Washington Post) have described these as "battleships" filled with "ordinance." So much for journalists understand...