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M/T Tankexpress To Tankexpress on the "Ships starting with T" page. Owner: Skibs-A/S Tankexpress Built in Gothenburg 1937. Previous name: Petrofina until 1939. Captain: Anders Skånberg. In Admiralty service from 1940 (Royal Fleet Auxiliary). In Jan.-1942 Tankexpress was among the ships in Convoy HX 169, and in Apr./May-1942 she can be found listed in Convoy HX 187 -follow the links for more convoy information. More voyages will be added.
According to the first external website that I've linked to below, Tankexpress was in station 44 of Convoy OS 30 in June-1942, voyaging from Milford in ballast with destination Trinidad and Aruba. The convoy arrived Freetown on June 19. She subsequently departed Freetown in a convoy on July 22* in ballast for Trinidad ( f. o. - this seems like an awfully long time in Freetown before she continued) and remained in the convoy until the 24th at which time she continued alone according to Admiralty instructions. The following day, July 25 at 13:05 ship's time, when south of the Cape Verde Islands she was hit by a torpedo from U-130 (Kals). It struck on the starboard side in the afterpart of No. 4 wing tank, blowing away the boatdeck on that side, destroying the lifeboat and blowing the raft overboard. The iron stanchions of the starboard flying bridge were bent inwards, so that the flying bridge fell down. She listed heavily to starboard, but the engine was not stopped and her crew stayed on board, though the captain soon realized they'd be unable to escape because her speed was drastically reduced. An SOS call was repeated four times at intervals on the W/T by the 1st mate before the ship was abandoned, but no acknowledgment was received.
The captain ordered the crew to the lifeboats, which had gotten about 100 yards away from the ship when another torpedo hit, this time in the engine room on the port side, but as she still didn't sink the U-boat came up to shell her. From the boats the crew could see that Tankexpress turned over on her side within an hour, until she turned her bottom up and was about to go down when they set sail for the coast (she sank about 2-3 hours after having been abandoned, position 10 05N 26 31W). The midships motorboat and the 2 aft lifeboats had been launched; the captain, the 1st mate and 8 men in the motorboat, the 2nd mate in charge of another boat and the 1st engineer of the 3rd boat. The 2 aft boats were taken in tow by the motorboat with course for Freetown, continuing to tow until July 26, then sails were set on all 3 boats, still tied together. After having sailed about 500 n. miles they were picked up about 250 miles from Freetown at 21:30 GMT on Aug. 1 by the British destroyer HMS Lightning and landed at Gibraltar on Aug. 9. They were accommodated in a British depot ship until the Norwegian Consul took charge of them on the 11th and provided the necessary clothing and accommodation. The maritime hearings were held in Gibraltar on Aug. 19. The following appeared: Captain Skånberg, 1st Mate Alf Riiber Christensen, who had been on board since July-1939, first as 3rd mate until July-1941, then as 1st mate, 2nd Mate Ingolf Remø who had served as 3rd mate from Nov.-1941, then 2nd mate from Apr.-1942, Ordinary Seaman Hjalmar Sivle who had been on board since Apr.-1942. He was on lookout duty on top of the chartroom when the torpedo hit. Able Seaman Thorleif Hansen, who had served as saloon boy from March-1939, and as able seaman from about Oct.-1941 was also questioned at the hearings. When the attack occurred he was at the helm. A month and a half after arrival Gibraltar they got passage on a troop transport to England where they joined other ships. Alf Riiber Christensen later joined M/T Minister Wedel (and torpedoed again), then John Bakke and Bergensfjord.
Crew List - No Casualties:
Norwegian, unless otherwise noted. *Thorleif Hansen later experienced the sinking of Hallanger.
Related external links: Back to Tankexpress on the "Ships starting with T" page.
The text on this page was compiled with the help of: "Nortraships flåte", J. R. Hegland, "Sjøforklaringer fra 2. verdenskrig", Norwegian Maritime Museum, Volume II (ref. My sources).
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