Progress Made in 2004

Visit to Newspaper Library (part of British Library), Colindale

I was able to order in advance two 1941 national newspapers on microfilm and was able to obtain copies of cuttings about the sinking of the s.s. Britannia to show my father, which he found fascinating

Visit to Guildhall Library, City of London

Ships in the Two Convoys

My father would have liked to know the other ships in the convoys fom UK and on his return. I was given the convoy number for the return trip on the Empress of Japan, by the Guildhall but there did not appear to be any other information available.

Lloyds Lists

The Guildhall hold Lloyds List and other records covering shipping movements in World War II (including the sinking of the ss Britannia) which are very interesting. I ordered access to:

Voyage Record Cards 1941

Convoy sailing from Liverpool bound for Bombay

• Britannia
• City of HongKong
• Themistocles

Convoy sailing from Gibraltar bound for the Clyde

• Empress of Japan
• Monarch of Bermuda

   

War Loss Records 1941

This was a summary of information provided by the Admiralty and Lloyds List including the position of the Britannia when it was sunk and two ships who picked up survivors. My father was shocked at the number of crew and passengers who were lost.

Progress Made in 2005

Looking through my father's bookcase I found a book: The Secret Raiders by David Woodward, that I do not remember seeing before and have extracted some of the content:

• The Secret Raiders- by David Woodward

Progress Made in 2006

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Progress Made in 2007

On a visit to the Public Record Office in Kew, I was able to inspect:

• the Passenger List of the Empress of Japan to identify which survivors returned to UK via Scotland
• the Ship's Log for HMS Repulse which gave the name of two of the other ships that escorted the convoy home:
  - Velox
  - Wrestler

Progress 2008

Other Researchers

 

A correspondent recently told me that there were other web-sites about the sinking of S S Britannia (on which my father was a passenger) in 1941, including some about the Goan crew.

Remarkably the web sites contained details of 4 or 5 people who signed a menu on which my father obtained the signatures of most of the survivors picked up by the Cabo de Hornos, including 4 people who were picked up from a raft.

One item that was particularly poignant was an account of another passenger who was picked up by the Cabo de Hornos and may have been in the same lifeboat as my Dad:

Sinking of the Britannia - Other Web-sites

Researcher in Goa

I was delighted that a journalist in Goa, who had collated extensive research into his web site, had been advised of my web site:

http://www.misquita.in/britannia/index.html

He was able to show the son of another survivor, picked up by the Cabo de Hornos, my father's account of the sinking of the SS Britannia including the menu which his father had signed:

The menu (i.e. the inside pages)on which my father obtained the signatures of nearly all the survivors picked up by the Cabo de Hornos

The journalist in Goa plans to write a book about the Britannia and may use some of the material that Dad and I put together.

Progress 2009

I was contacted by the grandson of one of the survivors of the sinking of the Britannia in 1941, who remarkably survived two sinkings. The survivor was in the Navy and signed my father's menu on the Cabo de Hornos. As a naval man he was interned in Tenerife, whilst my father went to Gibraltar and then a ship home.

Things We Wish We Knew

• The convoy number and the vessels in the convoy that sailed from Liverpool on 11 March 1841
• The new book about the Britannia.

Colin Bower
15 December 2008

Links to:
Britannia Index