Convoy HX 212 was the 212th of the numbered series of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

HX convoys of merchant ships from HalifaX to

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

. The ships departed

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

on 18 October 1942 and were met on 23 October by

Mid-Ocean Escort Force Mid-Ocean Escort Force (MOEF) referred to the organisation of anti-submarine escorts for World War II trade convoys between Canada and Newfoundland, and the British Isles. The allocation of United States, British, and Canadian escorts to these co ...

Group A-3 consisting of the

United States Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mult ...

, the

destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, manoeuvrable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against powerful short range attackers. They were originally developed in ...

and the s , , , , , and . The first five escorts had worked together previously, but the last three corvettes were attached to the convoy only for passage to the eastern Atlantic in preparation for assignments on

Operation Torch Operation Torch (8 November 1942 – Run for Tunis, 16 November 1942) was an Allies of World War II, Allied invasion of French North Africa during the Second World War. Torch was a compromise operation that met the British objective of secu ...

. ''Summerside'' was the only escort equipped with modern Type 271 centimeter-wavelength radar.Milner pp.175-177

Background

As western Atlantic coastal convoys brought an end to the

second happy time The "Second Happy Time" (; officially Operation Paukenschlag ("Operation Drumbeat"), and also known among German submarine commanders as the "American Shooting Season") was a phase in the Battle of the Atlantic during which Axis submarines att ...

, Admiral

Karl Dönitz Karl Dönitz (sometimes spelled Doenitz; ; 16 September 1891 24 December 1980) was a German admiral who briefly succeeded Adolf Hitler as head of state in May 1945, holding the position until the dissolution of the Flensburg Government follo ...

, the ''

Befehlshaber der U-Boote The ''Befehlshaber der Unterseeboote'' or BdU (Eng: "Commander of the U-boats") was the supreme commander of the German Navy's U-boat Arm (''Ubootwaffe'') during the First and Second World Wars. The term also referred to the Command HQ of the U-bo ...

'' (''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 The ''B-Dienst'' (german: Beobachtungsdienst, observation service), also called x''B-Dienst'', X-''B-Dienst'' and χ''B-Dienst'', was a Department of the German Naval Intelligence Service (german: Marinenachrichtendienst, MND III) of the OKM, t ...

'' decryption of British Naval Cypher Number 3. However, only 20 percent of the 180 trans-Atlantic convoys sailing from the end of July 1942 until the end of April 1943 lost ships to U-boat attack.Hague pp.132,137-138,161-162,164&181

26 October

'' U-436'' reported the convoy and shadowed it without being detected by the convoy escort.Rohwer & Hummelchen pp.169&170

27 October

''U-436'' launched five torpedoes at 2110Z hitting ''Sourabaya'', ''Gurney Newlin'' and ''Frontenac''. ''Alberni'' and ''Summerside'' dropped back to rescue survivors from the torpedoed ships.

28 October

'' U-606'' torpedoed ''Kosmos II'' on the starboard side at 0345Z. ''Barrwhin'' dropped back to rescue survivors, and both ships were sunk while the convoy proceeded ahead. A patrolling

Consolidated B-24 Liberator The Consolidated B-24 Liberator is an American heavy bomber, designed by Consolidated Aircraft of San Diego, California. It was known within the company as the Model 32, and some initial production aircraft were laid down as export models des ...

from

No. 120 Squadron RAF Number 120 Squadron or No. CXX Squadron is a squadron of the Royal Air Force which was established as a Royal Flying Corps unit late in World War I, disbanded a year after the end of the war, then re-established as a RAF Coastal Command squadro ...

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

prevented five U-boats from reaching attack positions during daylight hours but ''Bic Island'' and ''Pan-New York'' were torpedoed after sunset.

29 October

Northern routing enabled the convoy to pass through the narrowest portion of the air gap, and continuous daylight air patrols forced the U-boats to lose contact with the convoy. The

Naval trawler Naval trawlers are vessels built along the lines of a fishing trawler but fitted out for naval purposes; they were widely used during the First and Second World Wars. Some—known in the Royal Navy as "Admiralty trawlers"— were purpose-built to ...

s ''Bodo'' and ''Molde'' escorted the convoy through the

Western Approaches The Western Approaches is an approximately rectangular area of the Atlantic Ocean lying immediately to the west of Ireland and parts of Great Britain. Its north and south boundaries are defined by the corresponding extremities of Britain. The c ...

on 1 November; and the convoy reached

on 2 November.

Ships in convoy

Notes

References

* * * * * {{Use dmy dates, date=June 2017 HX212 Naval battles of World War II involving Canada C