Convoy ON 31 - warsailors.com (original) (raw)
Commodore R. Gill R.D., R.N.R. was in Ville de Tamatave (French, taken over by MoWT in 1941), Vice Commodore was the captain of the British Henzada (as can be seen in the table above, A. Hague says this ship returned).
The convoy had 33 ships.
Average speed: 6.23 knots.
ON 31 left in a gale. After forming up off Cape Wrath the weather was fine for the first week, followed by almost continuous bad weather. Course had to be altered by red lights at night and convoy was complemented by Escort on a well executed manoeuvre.
Coxwold, Knut (Danish/MoWT 1940), Hindsholm and Empire Garden (Br) left at 13:00 on Nov. 2 in 60 28N 16 45W, bound for Iceland.
Stal (Da) was sent to Iceland at the same time as the above, due to turbine trouble.
Clare Lilley (Br) left at 18:00 Nov. 11 in 47 48N 45 52W, due to breakdown of steering gear.
The following ships joined off Iceland at 12:20 on Nov. 4:
USS Mattole (listed as Manthole by the Commodore), Nandi (the Commodore calls her Nanbi), Ingerto, Akabahra and the Icelandic Selfoss.
Daily positions of convoy at 08:00 BST are available on request via the contacted address provided at the bottom of this page. Or, go to this page on Mike Holdoway's website (external link) - I sent him the coordinates, and he made a chart of the voyage (click on "Charted convoy routes").
Escorts:
Sunflower, Renoncule and Roselys joined at 02:55 Oct. 30 in 55 45N 06 53W - Left at 12:20 on Nov. 4 in 61 00N 26 55W.
Trawlers Inchkeith and Cape Warwick also joined at the same time as the above - left at 13:00 on Nov. 2 in 60 28N 16 45W (probably with the Iceland bound ships).
Destroyer HMS Amazon joined at 07:45 on Oct. 30 in 58 25N 05 28W - left at 12:20 on Nov. 4 in 61 00N 26 55W.
Destroyer HMS Georgetown joined at 13:00 on Oct. 30 in 58 48N 05 24W - left at the same time as Amazon, at which time the American USS Roe, Bainbridge, Truxtun, Sturtevant and Overton joined - all remained until convoy was dispersed on Nov. 15.
Air Escort:
From 08:00 Nov. 1 in 59 48N 09 32W.
From 08:00 Nov. 2 in 60 30N 14 19W.
From 09:50 Nov. 3 in 60 29N 21? 52W.
From 10:07 Nov. 4 in 60 58N 26 30W.
A. Hague lists the following (extracted from this list of ON convoy escorts, based on Arnold Hague's database, received from D. Kindell; dates are European style, day/month/year):
Amazon - From 30/10/41 to 04/11/41
Angle - From 28/10/41 to 04/11/41
Cape Warwick - From 30/10/41 to 02/11/41
Celandine - From 28/10/41 to 29/10/41
Georgetown - From 30/10/41 to 04/11/41
Heartsease - From 28/10/41 to 04/11/41
Inchkeith - From 30/10/41 to 02/11/41
Renoncule - From 30/10/41 to 04/11/41
Roselys - From 30/10/41 to 04/11/41
St. Apollo - From 28/10/41 to 04/11/41
Sunflower - From 30/10/41 to 04/11/41
USS Bainbridge - From 04/11/41 to 15/11/41
USS Overton - From 04/11/41 to 15/11/41
USS Roe - From 04/11/41 to 15/11/41
USS Sturtevant - From 04/11/41 to 15/11/41
USS Truxtun - From 04/11/41 to 15/11/41
To the next ON convoy in my list ON 32