D/S Siremalm
Updated June 13-2012

To Siremalm on the "Ships starting with S" page.

Crew List


Picture received from Mr. W. McDougall, whose half brother's father, Able Seaman Brynjulf Thu, was on Siremalm when she was sunk - see crew list below.

(Received from Don Kindell - His source: The late Arnold Hague's database).

Torpedoed - 1941:

Jürgen Rohwer says that Siremalm was torpedoed and damaged on March 23-1941 by U-110 (Lemp), position 60 35N 28 25W. I have not seen this episode mentioned in any of my Norwegian sources, but I've received an official report which describes what happened from John Granath, Canada (from Canadian archives). See also the external link below.

Siremalm was on a voyage from Reykjavik to Halifax at the time, having departed on March 21 carrying, among other things, a bag of mail from the Army post office in Iceland. She had a crew of 25 Norwegians. Armament consisted of a 4" gun and 3 machine guns. At 02:30 GMT on the 23rd, when in the position given above, a loud noise was heard on the port side close to the ship. The officer on watch saw a splash in the water followed by a sharp contact on the port side amidships. All bilges were sounded and found to be dry but from the engine room it was reported that there was a big indent in the vicinity of the boiler room. The ship was shelled twenty minutes after what is referred to as "the collision with this submerged object", time is given as 02:50 GMT, and she was hit once by a large shell and once by a small shell.

Further examination of the damages later revealed a hole in the port side, possibly made by the large shell, also some smaller damages. They proceeded at highest speed while Radio Operator M. Jørgensen used the W/T to broadcast SSS; attacked by submarine (no answer was received; the message was sent 3 times). The gun was loaded and manned and smoke floats made ready, but the gun was not used for fear of giving away their position and making the ship a target. The captain reported that the attacking vessel was showing 2 red lights when last seen. Siremalm continued her voyage while zig-zagging, and arrived Halifax without further incident on Apr. 2, continuing to New York 3 days later, according to Page 1 of the archive documents. It's possible some repairs were made at New York, because she remained there until May 25, having arrived Apr. 8.

From New York, she proceeded to Sydney, C.B. and at the beginning of June-1941, she joined Convoy SC 33, steel and lumber for London.

It looks like she had another long stay at Tyne that summer - see Voyage Record above and Page 2. From Tyne, she proceeded to Oban on Aug. 15, subsequently joining Convoy OG 72, which had originated in Liverpool on Aug. 19-1941 and arrived Gibraltar on Sept. 1. Siremalm, however, was bound for Cadiz, where she arrived on Sept. 1, having started out from Oban on Aug. 20. OG 72 will be added to its own individual page in my Convoys section, but in the meantime, the ships sailing in it are named on the page listing ships in all OG convoys. She later sailed to Gibraltar, with arrival Sept. 9, continuing to Almeria that same day, then back to Gibraltar, arriving Sept. 12.

Related external link:
Uboat. net also has an account of the above attack, saying that Siremalm had been spotted at 12.00 hours the day before and that the U-boat had lost contact temporarily due to aircraft that forced her to submerge. The site adds "After spotting the ship again, a stern torpedo missed at 03.14 hours and three minutes later a bow torpedo. 15 minutes after hitting the ship with the dud torpedo, Lemp attacked with all guns, but the barrel of the deck gun exploded on the first shot because the gun crew forgot to remove the water plug. The U-boat opened fire only with the 37mm and 20mm AA guns, scoring two hits in the hull on the port side of the ship" and "When U-110 tried to chase the ship, they suddenly begun to dive and had to stop. An examination of the deck showed that splinters of the exploded barrel had damaged some pipelines, which led to the unintentional diving and the damage forced the U-boat to abort the patrol".

Final Fate - 1941:

In the fall of 1941 Hitler demanded that German U-boats be placed in the Mediterranean, in order to help protect the convoys carrying supplies for the German Africa corps which was advancing towards Egypt. A considerable amount of boats were released, and in the course of the latter part of the year several U-boats had successfully gotten through the straits of Gibraltar, making the passage of north/southbound Atlantic convoys more dangerous for the Allies. Additionally, German Focke-Wolfe bombers and reconnaissance aircraft were operating west of Gibraltar, sinking ships as well as directing the U-boats towards their goals.

As mentioned above, Siremalm had arrived Gibraltar from Almeria on Sept. 12-1941. With a cargo of 4000 tons iron ore for Barrow, she left Gibraltar again on Sept. 17, joining Convoy HG 73, which suffered great losses. The convoy was initially shadowed by Italian submarines, though without causing any harm, but it was later located by German aircraft, which then notified the U-boats nearby. According to J. Rohwer, Siremalm was torpedoed by U-201 (Schnee) on Sept. 27. However, a recent re-assessment of events indicates that the culprit may have been U-124 (Mohr) in the evening of the 26th. See the discussion at Uboat.net's forum starting here (the info on Siremalm is in this reply) as well as this Reassessment of U-boat attacks (all are external links). Page 2 of the archive documents gives sinking date as Sept. 27 at 03:27.

She sank immediately, position 49 05N 20 10W (Hocking gives "about 700 miles west of the Bishop Rock"). There were no survivors; 20 Norwegian, 3 Finnish, 1 Swedish and 3 British seamen died (or possibly 21 Norwegians, no Swedish - see misc. notes below).

D/S Varangberg was also sunk in this convoy. (Follow the link to my page about HG 73 for more info on the other ships sunk).

For info, U-124 had also been responsible for the attack on Cubano - follow the link for details.

Crew List - No survivors:
* Konrad Olsen had previously served on Eastern Star (but is not included in the crew list at time of loss).
Stoker Schelderup had served on Mathilda and Stoker Olsen had been on board Spind when sunk the previous month.

Casualties
† Captain Haakon Svendsen	† 1st Mate Peder Nyberg	† 2nd Mate Einar Nicolaysen	† Radio Operator Magne Jørgensen	† Boatswain Stian Rasmussen	† Able Seaman Bjarne Engelsen
† Able Seaman Brynjulf Thu	† Able Seaman Arne Olsen	† Able Seaman Edvin Tollefsen	† Able Seaman Leif Myntevik	† Able Seaman Petti Kivikoski (Finnish)	† Able Seaman Erkki Tompuri (Finnish)
† 1st Engineer Olaf Jensen	† 2nd Engineer Allan Andersson (Swedish**)	† 3rd Engineer Konrad Olsen*	† Stoker Olaf Hansen	† Stoker Kaare Schelderup*	† Stoker Hermod Jensen
† Stoker Gunnar Aktmann (Finnish)	† Stoker Gunvald Olsen*	† Stoker Malbert Johansen	† Stoker Hans Leonard Ness	† Steward Ansgar Falk	† Cook Egil Ragnar Egeberg
† Mess Foreman Arthur Welsh* (British)	† Gunner S. Keyworth (British)	† Gunner ? Hemingway* (British)

* Arthur Welsh is listed as "Boy" on The Commonwealth War Graves Comm. website. I cannot find S. Keyworth, however, there's a Gunner Eric Hemingway listed as having died on the date Siremalm was lost. Additionally, Billy McGee, England has told me that there's a Fireman and Trimmer John Callister Allen commemorated at Tower Hill, Panel 98 - see this page - however, he was not included in the official crew list for Siremalm. All these links are external.

Related external links:
Stavern Memorial commemorations - 21 are commemorated at this memorial for seamen in Stavern, Norway. **Note that Engineer Allan Andersson, who's listed as Swedish in the crew list above, is included; in other words, he appears to have been Norwegian.

HG - 73, 19th to 28th September 1941
U-201 | Adalbert Schnee
U-124
U-boat war in the Mediterranean

Back to Siremalm on the "Ships starting with S" page.

The text on this page was compiled with the help of: "Nortraships flåte", J. R. Hegland, "Sjøforklaringer fra 2. verdenskrig", Volume II, Norwegian Maritime Museum, and misc., some of which are mentioned in the text above - (ref. My sources).