Manager: Nortraship
Tonnage: 7209 gt

Launched by Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyards Inc., Baltimore (2350) as William Hodson (Liberty Ship), completed Apr. 13-1944. 1 of 10 ships transferred to the Norwegian flag in 1944. See my page "Ship Statistics & Misc." under "gains" 1944 for a list of all 10. Sverre Helmersen was transferred to Nortraship in Baltimore on April 22.

Captain: August Chr. Konow.

Her voyages are listed on these original images from the Norwegian National Archives:
Page 1 | Page 2

Follow the convoy links provided for more information on each.

Following delivery in Apr.-1944, she travelled from Baltimore to Philadelphia, then on to Hampton Roads, joining Convoy UGS 42 from there in May, but returned to port, later joining UGS 43, which left Hampton Roads on May 23 and arrived Port Said, her destination at the time, on June 18. The Norwegian Fernplant, Garonne, Heimvard, Norelg (from Augusta), Tatra and Trondheim are also listed. About a week later, she appears in Convoy AP 73 from Aden to Bandar Abbas, departing June 26, arriving July 3. Heimvard was again in company, as was Polartank. She subsequently made some independent voyages to Bahrein, Shatt el Arab, Khorram Shahr, Abadan, Capetown, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro - see Page 1. She left Rio on Sept. 23 in Convoy JT 45 to Trinidad, with arrival there on Oct. 6, departing the following day for Philadelphia, where she arrived on Oct. 16. All the convoys mentioned here are available via the external links provided in the Voyage Record.

From Philadelphia she proceeded to New York on Oct. 31, arriving Nov. 1, then joined Convoy HX 318 to the U.K. She had a general cargo and had station 14 of the convoy, which left New York on Nov. 4 and arrived Liverpool on Nov. 19; Sverre Helmersen stopped at Belfast Lough that day. Having made a voyage to Cherbourg and back to the U.K. (see links to convoys BEC 48 and TBC 4 above, as well as Page 1 of the archive documents), she returned to New York with the westbound North Atlantic Convoy ON 273*, which left Southend on Dec. 18-1944 and arrived New York on Jan. 4-1945. The Norwegian Frithjof Nansen, Glarona, Kaia Knudsen, Morgenen, Reinholt (returned) and Skotaas are also listed.

With a general cargo for Liverpool, she headed back to the U.K. again in Convoy HX 333 from New York on Jan. 18-1945, subsequently returning across the Atlantic on Febr. 11 with Convoy ON 284*, which arrived New York on March 1. She was again in the company of a number of other Norwegian ships, namely Abraham Lincoln (Commodore Vessel), Fernwood, Noreg, Norsol, Toronto, Troubadour and Velma. According to Arnold Hague, she later joined Convoy HX 347*, departing New York on March 29, arriving Liverpool on Apr. 14. Brasil, Buenos Aires, Dalfonn, Fenris, Lektor Garbo, Marit II, Roald Amundsen, Sophocles (Commodore Vessel) and Thorsholm are also listed, as is the Panamanian Norlys, which had Norwegian managers and is, therefore, included under the N's on this website. Sverre Helmersen had station 124 of the convoy, carrying a general cargo and engineers equipment.

She now made a voyage to Scheldt (again, see Page 1) - A. Hague has her, along with Roald Amundsen, in Convoy TAM 139, which left Southend on Apr. 15-1945 and arrived Antwerp the next day.

She was for a long time believed to have struck a mine off Ramsgate on Apr. 22(?)-1945, but after the war it was "determined" she had been torpedoed by U-2329** (Schlott), no casualties. (I've seen mention of D/S Akershus being on the scene, helping with the salvage). She was taken in tow to Falmouth, declared a total loss. According to "Lloyd's War Losses, Vol. I" she was on a voyage from Antwerp to New York in ballast at the time, and was towed to Cowes Roads (arr. Apr. 26), then proceeded to Falmouth in June (arr. June 22, according to Page 2). Left River Fall July 22-1948 for Zeebrugge for breaking up.

* The 2 ON convoys mentioned above will be added to individual pages in my Convoys section in due course, with more information on each; in the meantime, the ships sailing in them are named in the section listing ships in all ON convoys. The entire HX series will be also be updated and completed (including the already existing convoys - some have already been updated), but for now, other ships sailing in HX 347 are listed at ships in all HX convoys.

** Jürgen Rohwer states in his "Axis Submarine Successes of World War Two" that U-2329 (external link) did not confirm the attack on Sverre Helmersen. He suggests a midget submarine (KU 5) might have been behind the attack but that's not proven either. He gives the date as Apr. 23 and the position as 51 28N 01 55W, adding that she was not repaired. "Liberty Ships in peacetime", I. G. Stewart gives the position as 51 19N 1 47E(?), but gives the mine theory. Note also that A. Hague has included her in Convoy ATM 133 from Antwerp on Apr. 23-1945 - ref. link in the table above.

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:
Liberty Ships - Unfortunately, the list no longer appears to be included at this site (unfortunate, because I have 100's of links to it from my Convoys section). If I remember correctly, that particular section was hosted by Peter Thompson, who has now moved to a different site, but I cannot find his list of Liberty Ships. I'll leave the link up for now until I can find out whether it's still available somewhere. I did find an identical page here, but as will be seen, the alphabetical links receive an error.

Empire Ships website - Linked directly to Liberty Ships starting with W.

See also:
List of Liberty Ships - Includes info on the men and women for whom the ships were named (from Wikipedia).

Back to Sverre Helmersen on the "Ships starting with S" page.

The text on this page was compiled with the help of: "Nortraships flåte", J. R. Hegland, and misc. other as named in the above narrative.

Aa–Al	An–Ar	As–Av	Ba	Be	Bi–Bl	Bo	Br–Bu	C	D
E	F	G	Ha	He	Hi–Hy	Hø	I	J	K
L	M	N	O	PQ	R	Sa–Sc	Se–Sj	Sk–Sn	So
Sp–St	Su–Sø	Ta–Te	Th–Ti	To	Tr–Tø	U	V	W	Ø

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