M/S Tiradentes
Updated Sept. 18-2012

To Tiradentes on the "Ships starting with T" page.


Source: Tony Cooper's collection.

The Australian War Memorial also has a picture of this ship, taken in 1941 (external links).
See also this external page (click in the photo to enlarge).

Misc. Convoy Voyages:

For information on voyages made in between those mentioned here, please see the documents received from the National Archives of Norway and A. Hague's Voyage Record above. Follow the links provided for more convoy information - several Norwegian ships took part.

As will be seen when going to Page 1 of the archive documents, Tiradentes was en route from Albany to Norway when the country was invaded by the Germans on Apr. 9-1940, but was diverted to London. She's listed among the ships in the Gibraltar-U.K. Convoy HGF 29 in May, bound for Falmouth with wheat and fruit, arriving that destination on May 11, proceeding to London May 14, with arrival May 16. The following month she was briefly in Convoy OA 162, which left Southend on June 5 and dispersed 2 days later. Her destination is given as New York, where she arrived June 20. Bomma and Harpefjell are also listed in this convoy - ref. external link provided within the Voyage Record.

The captain had a tendency to not follow cruising orders, but staked out his own and, as it turned out, safer routes across the oceans. On many occasions the normal convoy routes lost several ships, whereas he reached his destination safely every time. He also copied the methods of the German raiders and camouflaged his ship by equipping her with American nationality markings, and sailing with all the lights on, continuing this until the US entered the war the following year. This, of course, had to be done as secretly as possible, and he always waited until the ship had left port before putting up this disguise, taking everything down before arrival. On one such voyage, however, he was caught and reported to the Naval Intelligence Officer, whose comment is reported to have been: "We are only interested in seeing the ship safely in port".

In Jan.-1941, she's listed in the Bermuda portion of Convoy HX 102, but returned to port (Halifax). She shows up again in Convoy HX 105 from Halifax on Jan. 25, cargo of steel and general for Belfast, station 93. Going back to Page 1, we see that she stopped at Loch Ewe on Febr. 7 (it looks like her final destination was London, which is also the destination given in the Advance Sailing Telegram for HX 102). With a note saying "possibly this convoy", A. Hague later mentions her (along with Leiesten) in Convoy OB 293, which originated in Liverpool on March 2 and dispersed March 8; Tiradentes arrived New York on March 20, having sailed from Loch Ewe on March 4. Several ships were torpedoed, see the external link at the end of this page for more info.

Her subsequent voyages are shown on Page 2 and Page 3 of the archive documents (it'll be noticed that she occasionally had long stays in port); convoy information for some of these can be found in the Voyage Record above.

Skipping now to Jan. 22-1944, when she's included among the ships in Convoy MKS 37 from Gibraltar, as are Boreas, Norfalk and Troubadour. The next day, this convoy joined up with Convoy SL 146, which had started out from Freetown on Jan. 12, the combined convoy arriving Liverpool on Febr. 2 - again, see the external link in the table above for more convoy information (the archive document gives her arrival Liverpool as Febr. 5; according to A. Hague, she had lost her anchor). She had a cargo of zinc concentrates and wool and later proceeded to Avonmouth, with arrival there on Febr. 12, returning to Liverpool again later that month. As will be seen, when going back to Page 3, there's now a big gap* in her voyages, from Febr. 26-1944, when she had arrived Liverpool from Avonmouth, to July 25, when she left for New York. This voyage was made with the westbound North Atlantic Convoy ON 246*, which arrived New York Aug. 9 and also had Abraham Lincoln, Alaska, Atlantic, Brimanger (Commodore Vessel), Dageid, Dalfonn, Danio, Fernwood, Ivaran, James Hawson, Kaldfonn, Leiv Eiriksson, Petter, Skotaas, Strinda, Thorhild, Toronto, Vardefjell, Velox and Ørnefjell in its ranks.

* It's possible she had been in for repairs in this period? In John Simpson's story, we find the following (no dates are given, but compare this with the details found on Page 3. I believe the info in this first paragraph pertains to the listing for May/Aug.-1943 on the document, when Tiradentes spent a long time in Sydney. Fremantle, however, is not mentioned for this period. John Simpson had just paid off Troja):
"And I joined the Tiradentes in Sydney, which was due to return to Liverpool via the Middle East. She was undergoing repairs, and loading with military supplies urgently awaited in the Middle East. We eventually got out of Sydney but broke down in the process. Everything went wrong with the Tiradentes. If it was possible to break down, it did. It was one of the very early motor vessels. I know I was on my feet from leaving Sydney to arriving in Melbourne, which took three days instead of the normal one or two as the generators kept failing. I only left the engine room to eat. But we got there, and carried out more repairs in Melbourne, then more repairs in Fremantle, and set off from Fremantle for Durban, and broke down practically every day. It was a hair-raising voyage and we eventually arrived with one engine completely shattered.

On one of these breakdowns we changed the exhaust valves on the starboard engine because the other ones had burned out, and the Second Engineer went to start the engine, which you did by turning a wheel attached to the starting manifold - six on air, three on air and three on fuel, and six on fuel - and there was an explosion, and the starting manifold disappeared into bits and the Second Engineer was left standing there with the wheel in his hand. I was at the top of the engine room looking down and I saw him standing there with this wheel in his hand. It was an absolute miracle, with this big heavy casting exploding to either side of him, that nobody was hurt. The explosion started the engine, but there was nothing else that could be done because there was no means of starting once you had stopped - you just had to run it on and on getting gradually slower and slower until eventually it packed up altogether.

It took us 55 days to get from Fremantle to Durban. The port engine had to be stopped for repairs to the valve gear several times, but fortunately with no more explosions, and we eventually made it. The ship had been written off as lost. We said we weren't lost, just delayed! They were very pleased to see us in Durban, but we were a bit late getting these military supplies to the Middle East - we thought at the time that the bloody war would be over before we got there!

The amazing thing about getting the repairs done in Durban was that they had all the drawings and the pattern blocks for the starting manifold. When the Norwegians left Norway when the Germans invaded, they had the good sense to get all the patterns and drawings from the shipyard and take them with them, so we were able to manufacture them in Durban. It must have been three weeks - you can't do it overnight, it was a very complicated manifold. But we got it done and set sail for the Gulf of Aden - but we broke down before we even got to Beira (again, see Page 3). No generator power, and the generators were old, ancient. It was blast injection, the fuel was injected with high pressure compressed air rather than by a pump. That was on very early diesels, and they gave a lot of trouble. There was constant bearing failure on the generator engines. We eventually got repaired again in Beira, and went out and joined a convoy (Convoy DKA 8? - external link, she would have joined from Beira, not Durban), then lost it because we broke down again and kept breaking down. We were left very much on our own.

We eventually discharged these military supplies at either Port Said or Lake Timsah, I can't remember which, and set off westbound in the Mediterranean, with a barrage balloon attached. You would see strange blobs appearing over the horizon, and wonder what it was, then suddenly realise it was barrage balloons over another convoy coming the other way. We limped along once more, completely on our own (as mentioned, she's included among the ships in Convoy SL 146/MKS 37, having started out from Gibraltar in MKS 37 on Jan. 22), and eventually got into the Western Approaches. We had to wait outside Liverpool for a day in rough weather, and eventually got in. We discharged the remains of the cargo at Liverpool Docks and went across to Cammell Lairds at Birkenhead for repairs. It had taken us seven months to travel from Sydney to Liverpool, longer than in the days of sail."

As already mentioned, Tiradentes had left Liverpool again on July 25-1944, arriving New York Aug. 9. From the U.S., she now sailed to Cristobal and Australia, then headed back to the U.S. at the end of that year, arriving New York on Jan. 4-1945 (Page 3). She had been scheduled for Convoy HX 330 from New York to the U.K. on Jan. 3 (Commodore in Topdalsfjord), but did not sail and was also cancelled from Convoy HX 331 on Jan. 8 (Commodore in Montevideo), but on Jan. 10, she proceeded to Halifax (via Boston), joining the slow Convoy SC 165 from there on Jan. 16, bound for London with a general cargo and mail. She subsequently returned to New York in Convoy ON 287*, which left Southend on Febr. 25 and arrived New York March 14. Buenos Aires, Norsktank, Roald Amundsen, Solfonn, Sophocles, Strix, Thorshov and Østhav are also listed. Tiradentes now remained in New York for several weeks. The rest of her voyages are shown on Page 4. From this, we learn that she went home to Norway in Oct.-1945 (and again in Febr.-1946).

* The ON convoys will be added to individual pages in my Convoys section in due course, along with further details on each. In the meantime, the ships sailing in them (and escorts) are named in the section listing ships in all ON convoys.

For more details on all the other Norwegian ships mentioned on this page, please see the alphabet index below, or go to the Master Ship Index.

POST WAR:

Sold on Aug. 23-1950 to H. Vogemann, Germany and renamed Vogtland. Sold in 1956 to the Ministry of Transport, London and loaded at Cairnryan with a cargo of bombs. Scuttled in the North Atlantic on May 30-1956.

Related external link:
Ships hit from convoy OB 293

Back to Tiradentes on the "Ships starting with T" page.

The text on this page was compiled with the help of: Wilh. Wilhelmsen fleet list, "Skip og menn", Birger Dannevig (which has quite a bit of information on this ship's war voyages), and misc. other.