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Convoy Commodore
Convoy commodore also known as commodore, convoys was the title of a civilian put in charge of the good order of the merchant ships in the British convoys used during World War II. Usually the convoy commodore was a retired naval officer or a senior merchant captain drawn from the Royal Naval Reserve. He was aboard one of the merchant ships. The convoy commodore was distinguished from the commander of the convoy's escort, always a naval officer. Description Convoy commodores were based at HMS ''Eaglet'', the Royal Navy's shore establishment at Liverpool. Commodores had a peripatetic role, sailing with each convoy as assigned in a suitable ship. This ship would be the convoy flagship, but remained under the command of its master, the commodore and his team merely taking passage. The commodores were accompanied by a small team of ratings, usually a yeoman and two or three signalers; these teams would stay together and work with the same commodore throughout the campaign, allowin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against France. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century; the oldest of the UK's armed services, it is consequently known as the Senior Service. From the middle decades of the 17th century, and through the 18th century, the Royal Navy vied with the Dutch Navy and later with the French Navy for maritime supremacy. From the mid 18th century, it was the world's most powerful navy until the Second World War. The Royal Navy played a key part in establishing and defending the British Empire, and four Imperial fortress colonies and a string of imperial bases and coaling stations secured the Royal Navy's ability to assert naval superiority globally. Owing to this historical prominence, it is common, even among non-Britons, to ref ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Canadian Navy
The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN; french: Marine royale canadienne, ''MRC'') is the Navy, naval force of Canada. The RCN is one of three environmental commands within the Canadian Armed Forces. As of 2021, the RCN operates 12 frigates, four attack submarines, 12 coastal defence vessels, eight patrol class training vessels, two offshore patrol vessels, and several auxiliary vessels. The RCN consists of 8,570 Regular Force and 4,111 Primary Reserve sailors, supported by 3,800 civilians. Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee is the current commander of the Royal Canadian Navy and chief of the Naval Staff. Origins of the Royal Canadian Navy, Founded in 1910 as the Naval Service of Canada (French: ''Service naval du Canada'') and given royal sanction on 29 August 1911, the RCN was amalgamated with the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Canadian Army to form the Unification of the Canadian Forces, unified Canadian Armed Forces in 1968, after which it was known as Maritime Command (French: ''Commandemen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Convoy QP 14
QP 14 was an Arctic convoy of the QP series which ran during World War II. It was one of a series of convoys run to return Allied ships from Soviet northern ports to home ports in Britain. It sailed in September 1942 from Archangel in Russia to Loch Ewe in Scotland. Ships The convoy initially consisted of 20 merchant ships, most of which had arrived with PQ 17. The convoy commodore was Capt. JCK Dowding, in ''Ocean Voice''. The close escort comprised two destroyers, four corvettes, three ASW minesweepers, and four ASW trawlers, supplemented by three AA cruisers. Most of these had also arrived with PQ 17. Senior Officer for the escort was Capt. JHF Crombie, in the minesweeper ''Bramble''. The convoy was joined at sea by the ocean escort from PQ 18, comprising the cruiser ''Scylla'', the escort carrier ''Avenger'', and 16 destroyers. These were supported by a cruiser cover force, of three cruisers and eight destroyers, and a distant cover force of two battleships, a cruiser, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Convoy PQ 17
PQ 17 was the code name for an Allied Arctic convoy during the Second World War. On 27 June 1942, the ships sailed from Hvalfjörður, Iceland, for the port of Arkhangelsk in the Soviet Union. The convoy was located by German forces on 1 July, after which it was shadowed continuously and attacked. The First Sea Lord Admiral Dudley Pound, acting on information that German surface units, including the German battleship ''Tirpitz'', were moving to intercept, ordered the covering force built around the Allied battleships HMS ''Duke of York'' and the USS ''Washington'' away from the convoy and told the convoy to scatter. Because of vacillation by '' Oberkommando der Wehrmacht'' (OKW, German armed forces high command), the ''Tirpitz'' raid never materialised. The convoy was the first large joint Anglo-American naval operation under British command; in Churchill's view this encouraged a more careful approach to fleet movements. As the close escort and the covering cruiser forces withd ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Dowding (naval Officer)
John Charles Keith Dowding CBE DSO (1891–1965) was a British naval officer during the 20th century. He served in both world wars and was awarded the DSO for his actions during the Dunkirk evacuation. He is best known for being the commodore in charge of the ill-fated Arctic convoy PQ 17. Early life Jack Dowding was born on 1 November 1891 in Dibrugarh, British India, to Charles and Kathleen Dowding. His father was an Anglican clergyman, who served there before returning to England and residing at St John's in the Vale, Cumberland.John Charles Keith Dowding at ancestry.com Dowding was educated at St Bees School, in what is now Cumbria, and on the Royal Navy training ship HMS ''Conway''.Commodore John Charles Keith Dowding at pwsts.org.uk (Prince of Wales Sea Training School) He became a probationary [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HMS Fidelity (D57)
HMS ''Fidelity'' (D57) was a Special Service Vessel of the British Royal Navy during World War II, originally the French merchant vessel ''Le Rhin''. Background The 2,456-ton ship was built by H. & C. Grayson Ltd. of Garston, Liverpool, and completed in 1920 for ''Compagnie de Navigation Paquet'', Marseilles. In June 1940 ''Le Rhin'' was seized '' Lieutenant de Vaisseau'' Claude Andre Michel Peri at Marseilles and sailed for Gibraltar. Peri and his crew wished to continue the fight after the Fall of France and ''Le Rhin'' was turned over to the Royal Navy at Barry, Wales. The ship was converted into an auxiliary warship, and commissioned on 24 September 1940 as HMS ''Fidelity'' (D57) under the command of Lt. Peri, serving as Lieutenant Commander Jack Langlais RNVR. Her officers included Lt-Cmdr. Albert Guérisse serving as Patrick Albert O'Leary RNVR, and First Officer Madeleine Bayard serving as Madeleine Barclay WRNS. Because they had families in occupied Europe crew memb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Convoy ON 154
Convoy ON 154 - also ON(S) 154 or ONS 154 - was a North Atlantic convoy of the ON series which ran during the battle of the Atlantic in World War II. It was the 154th of the numbered series of merchant ship convoys Outbound from the British Isles to North America. It came under attack in December 1942 and lost 13 of its 50 freighters. One of the attacking U-boats was destroyed. Background As western Atlantic coastal convoys brought an end to the second happy time, Admiral Karl Dönitz, the ''Befehlshaber der U-Boote'' (''BdU'') or commander in chief of U-boats, shifted focus to the mid-Atlantic to avoid aircraft patrols. Although convoy routing was less predictable in the mid-ocean, Dönitz anticipated that the increased numbers of U-boats being produced would be able to effectively search for convoys with the advantage of intelligence gained through '' B-Dienst'' decryption of British Naval Cypher Number 3. However, only 20 percent of the 180 trans-Atlantic convoys sailing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wion De Malpas Egerton
Vice Admiral Wion de Malpas Egerton, DSO (16 April 1879 – 1 January 1943) was a British Royal Navy officer from the Egerton family, who served in World War I and was Deputy Director of Torpedoes and Mining from 1921 to 1922. Egerton was killed in the Second World War as commander of a North Atlantic convoy. Background Egerton was born in the Punjab in 1879, the son of Indian Army officer (later Field Marshal) Sir Charles Egerton (1848–1921) by his wife Anna Wellwood. His grandfather was Major-General Caledon Egerton (1814–1874), a son of the ninth baronet of the Grey Egerton branch of the aristocratic Egerton family. Naval career Egerton joined the Royal Navy in the 1890s, and was promoted to lieutenant on 15 April 1900. He was posted to the battleship HMS ''Centurion'' on 15 January 1901, then serving as flagship of Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Seymour on the China Station. In July and August 1902 he had a temporary posting to , flagship to Sir Charles Frederick Hotham ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Convoy SC 121
Convoy SC 121 was the 121st of the numbered series of World War II Slow Convoys of merchant ships from Sydney, Cape Breton Island to Liverpool. The ships departed New York City 23 February 1943; and were met by the Mid-Ocean Escort Force Group A-3 consisting of the United States Coast Guard (USCG) , the American , the British and Canadian s , , and and the convoy rescue ship ''Melrose Abbey''.Rohwer & Hummelchen 1992 p.196 Three of the escorts had defective sonar and three had unserviceable radar.Morison 1975 p.342 Background As western Atlantic coastal convoys brought an end to the second happy time, Admiral Karl Dönitz, the ''Befehlshaber der U-Boote'' (''BdU'') or commander in chief of U-Boats, shifted focus to the mid-Atlantic to avoid aircraft patrols. Although convoy routing was less predictable in the mid-ocean, Dönitz anticipated that the increased numbers of U-boats being produced would be able to find convoys with the advantage of intelligence gained through ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cunard Line
Cunard () is a British shipping and cruise line based at Carnival House at Southampton, England, operated by Carnival UK and owned by Carnival Corporation & plc. Since 2011, Cunard and its three ships have been registered in Hamilton, Bermuda. In 1839, Samuel Cunard was awarded the first British transatlantic steamship mail contract, and the next year formed the British and North American Royal Mail Steam-Packet Company in Glasgow with shipowner Sir George Burns together with Robert Napier, the famous Scottish steamship engine designer and builder, to operate the line's four pioneer paddle steamers on the Liverpool–Halifax–Boston route. For most of the next 30 years, Cunard held the Blue Riband for the fastest Atlantic voyage. However, in the 1870s Cunard fell behind its rivals, the White Star Line and the Inman Line. To meet this competition, in 1879 the firm was reorganised as the Cunard Steamship Company, Ltd, to raise capital. In 1902, White Star joined the Ame ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harry Charles Birnie
Captain Harry Charles Birnie, (1 October 1882 – 9 March 1943) was a Scottish sea captain and naval officer. His peacetime seafaring career was spent with the Cunard Line. He also served in the Royal Navy in both World Wars, being killed in action while in command of a merchant convoy in the North Atlantic in 1943. Early life Birnie was the son of Reverend C. Birnie, MA, and Katherine Birnie, of New Aberdour, in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Cunard service Birnie served as a junior officer on , under Sir Arthur Henry Rostron. On 26 April 1907, Rostron and Birnie are said to have observed a sea monster. Rostron wrote about the episode in his autobiography, while Birnie confirmed the account several years later. During the inter-war years, Birnie returned to the Cunard Line, eventually reaching the rank of captain at a young age. He made numerous Atlantic crossings in command of the , and . Naval service World War I While employed by the Cunard Line, Birnie was also a mem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Liverpool Naval Memorial
The Liverpool Naval Memorial, also known as the Memorial to the Missing of the Naval Auxiliary Personnel of the Second World War or the Merchant Navy War Memorial, is a war memorial at Pier Head beside the River Mersey in Liverpool, near to the Royal Liver Building and the Museum of Liverpool. It commemorates nearly 1,400 men from the British Merchant Navy who died on active service with Royal Navy in the Second World War, and who have no known grave. More than 13,000 officers and seamen of the Merchant Navy agreed to serve with the Royal Navy in the Second World War, serving mainly in auxiliary vessels such as armed merchant cruisers, subject to military discipline but still receiving civilian pay. The depot for registration and administration of the naval auxiliaries from the Merchant Navy was established at Liverpool. After the Second World War, the Imperial War Graves Commission (later the Commonwealth War Graves Commission) organised a competition for a memorial, with a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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