Site Map | Search Warsailors.com | Merchant Fleet Main Page | Warsailors.com Home |
|
M/T Barbro To Barbro on the "Ships starting with B" page. Owner: Rederi-A/S Mascot Built by Götaverken A/B, Gothenburg in 1934. Captain: Lauritz Knudsen
(Received from Don Kindell - His source: The late Arnold Hague's database). Follow the convoy links provided for more information on each. Errors may exist, and information is incomplete. Voyages from March-1940 to Sept.-1941 are listed on this document received from the National Archives of Norway.
Barbro lost a crew member in Dec.-1940 - see the text at the first external link at the end of this page. As mentioned, Barbro is listed among the ships in the Halifax-U.K. Convoy HX 123 in Apr./May-1941. She had a cargo of diesel oil and had station 74 of the convoy, which left Halifax on Apr. 25-1941 and arrived Liverpool on May 13; Barbro's destination is given as Manchester. According to the Commodore's notes this was her first time sailing in convoy, and he says she was slow at signalling and was inclined to drop back at night. In June we find her, together with the Norwegian Elg, Hardanger, Havsten, Hellen, Ida Knudsen, Solfonn, Torfinn Jarl, Troubadour, and Vivi, in Convoy OB 331, which departed Liverpool on June 8-1941 and dispersed on the 19th; her destination is given as Aruba, where she arrived on June 29 (ref. external link provided in the table above). She returned to the U.K. the following month with Convoy HX 139, bound for Swansea with gas oil, station 103. This convoy left Halifax on July 16 and arrived Liverpool on the 31st. However, according to her Voyage Record, Barbro stopped at Belfast Lough and joined a BB convoy from there, arriving Swansea on Aug. 2. She subsequently joined the westbound North Atlantic Convoy ON 6, which originated in Liverpool on Aug. 11-1941 and dispersed on the 24th. Her destination is given as New York and she had station 24 (right behind Vivi). Follow the links for more information on these convoys; several Norwegian ships took part. Her voyage back to the U.K. proved to be her last, as will be seen in the next paragraph.
According to Norwegian sources she was on a voyage from Halifax to Liverpool when she was sunk with 2 torpedoes from U-552 (Topp) just before midnight on September 19-1941 while in convoy SC 44, escorted by 1 destroyer and 4 corvettes, Honeysuckle and Mayflower being two of them. SC 44 departed Sydney C. B. on Sept. 11-1941 and arrived Liverpool on the 30th, having lost 4 merchant ships (Empire Burton, Pink Star, and T. J. Williams in addition to Barbro. The Canadian corvette Levis was also sunk). Barbro had a cargo of 9000 tons petrol and all on board her, 21 Norwegians, 3 Swedes, 1 Dane, 5 British and 4 Canadians died in the flames, helplessly watched by other ships around her. According to "Nortraships flåte" she sank in 61 30N 35 07W (35 11?). Another Norwegian ship in this convoy was D/S Carrier, but she was not hit at that time. Convoy SC 44 is available at the external link in the above table, and as will be seen it had several Norwegian ships in addition to the 2 already mentioned, namely Ada, Bollsta, Borgfred, Cetus, Gudvin, Hjalmar Wessel, Iron Baron, Lago, Marita, Rolf Jarl, Sirehei, Sneland I, South Africa, and Spero. The information in Rohwer's book states that Barbro was torpedoed early in the morning of Sept. 20 by U-552. In a footnote he says this U-boat hit her with 2 torpedoes, and U-69 (Zahn) tried to administer a coup de grâce but the torpedo did not detonate. Position given is 61 30N 35 00W. The difference in dates here might simply be due to the Norwegian records using a different time zone. Charles Hocking says Barbro was on a voyage from New York to Stanlow. A visitor to my website says Barbro left New York on Sept. 6-1941, arrived Sydney N. S. on the 10th, then departed the next day for Manchester (which agrees with the above record). He says MOD records state that she was torpedoed at 01:30 hours on the 20th and sank 370miles west/southwest of Reykjavik. For more information on all the other Norwegian ships mentioned on this page, please see the alphabet index below, or go to the Master Ship Index.
Related external links: Back to Barbro on the "Ships starting with B" page. Other ships by this name: Norway had a steamship by the name Barbro in WW I, built 1891, 2356 gt - torpedoed and sunk by UC 48 in the English Channel on Oct.14-1917. Another, much smaller steamer by this name was built in 1901, listed as D/S Bro on this website. The text on this page was compiled with the help of: "Nortraships flåte", J. R. Hegland, "Sjøforklaringer fra 2. verdenskrig", Volume I (Norwegian Maritime Museum), and misc. others for cross checking info. - ref My sources.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||