M/S Granville - Norwegian Merchant Fleet 1939-1945 (original) (raw)

M/S Granville Updated Sept. 21-2011

To Granville on the "Ships starting with G" page.

Source: John Clarkson (received from Roger W. Jordan).

From Bjørn Milde's postcard collection.
See also this external page (click in the small photo).

Owner: Skibs-A/S Siljestad, Oslo
Manager: A. F. Klaveness & Co. A/S, Oslo
Tonnage: 5745 gt, 3359 net, 9265 tdwt.
Dimensions: 445.4' x 58.5' x 25.9'
Machinery: 2 x 6 cyl. DM (Burmeister & Wain, Copenhagen), 4500 bhp.

Built by Odense Staalskibsverft, Odense, Denmark (40), delivered in July-1930 as Granville to A/S Goodwill (A. F. Klaveness & Co. A/S), Oslo. Owned from 1931 by The Pacific Asiatic Shipping Co. Inc., Panama (same manager), then from March-1939 by Skibs-A/S Sommerstad, Oslo, but transferred that same year to Skibs-A/S Siljestad, Oslo (still the same manager). It'll be noticed, when following the external link provided above, that some of the dates are different.

Captain: Karl Johan Løvik from Nov.-1939 till Sept.-1943 (previous captain had the last name Hassel). Captain Løvik later briefly served as captain of Roseville (where he had previously served as 2nd and 1st mate), before joining Fernglen, then Stirlingville. He died in Dec.-1990. This external page has Captain Løvik's story - text is in Norwegian, scroll down on the page for his WW II experiences.

Her voyages are listed on these original images from the Norwegian National Archives:
Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5 | Page 6

Please compare the above voyages with Arnold Hague's Voyage Record below.

Voyage Record
From Jan.-1942 to Jan.-1946:

(Received from Don Kindell - His source: The late Arnold Hague's database).

Follow the convoy links provided for more information on each; other Norwegian ships also took part.

Errors may exist, and many voyages are missing.

This external page has Captain Løvik's story, which describes some of Granville's voyages. Among other things he says that they made a voyage to Vancouver, Canada shortly after he had joined her on Nov. 30-1939, then to Tacoma, Seattle and San Francisco and on to Los Angeles, where they took on board cows and ammonia as deck cargo, before heading to the Phillipines, enduring terrible weather on the way, the voyage lasting 26 days. Cargo was unloaded in Manilla as well as Iloili and Cebu, before heading to Hong Kong, Singapore and Penang, from there to Sumatra and Batavia and 3 other cities on Java, one being Sourabaya. From there, they went to Jolo, then on to Zamboanga, Kolabugan, and Dumaquete (I'm not sure if his spelling of these places is correct), before going back to Manilla and Hong Kong, then returned to the U.S., arriving Los Angeles on March 25-1940. They subsequently went to San Francisco, then Portland, Oregon, leaving the latter for Tacoma on Apr. 7, and were on their way into the Strait of Juan de Fuca in the evening of Apr. 8, local time, when they heard about the German invasion of Norway over the radio. Granville arrived Tacoma the following morning, where they took on board a cargo for Seattle, departing Tacoma on Apr. 10 and arrived Seattle the same day, remaining there for 2 days while cargo was loaded. They subsequently returned to San Francisco with arrival Apr. 14. After having loaded cargo there, they proceeded to Los Angeles again on Apr. 16, and 2 days later they set out on another voyage to Manilla, with arrival May 11. (Compare the captain's narrative with what can be found on Page 1 of the archive documents).

From then on, Granville made several similar voyages back and forth to the Philippines, Hong Kong and Singapore etc. (again, see Page 1 above, as well as Page 2), and was back in Seattle when Pearl Harbor was attacked on Dec. 7-1941 - see Page 3. She was sent to Vancouver in order to have armament and degaussing installed, which meant that Christmas was spent there, while New Year's Eve was celebrated in New Westminster, before heading to Portland, then via San Francisco (Jan. 15-1942) and Los Angeles to The Persian Gulf, departure Los Angeles Jan. 24. She carried military stores as well as "30 selected men" (I believe these were gunners?), and had also gotten more armament (by this time she had been chartered by what the captain calls the "U.S. Ministry of War Transport"). I get the impression that Granville had a Chinese crew, but they were later replaced by Norwegians. The captain says they had 2 aircraft as well as 1000 tons high octane gasoline and 400 tons lub. oil for The Persion Gulf, which I find a bit strange, since Granville was not a tanker as far as I know - he does refer to the ship as M/S Granville in his story. She arrived Cape Town on March 4 for routing orders, having stopped by Trinidad on the way. Some of the gasoline and oil were discharged near Abadan at the end of March.

The story is very long and detailed, and it would be too much for me to add a complete translated summary here, but if you read Norwegian, please go to the external link provided.

Her 1943 voyages also start on Page 3 and continue on Page 4, which also shows some 1944 voyages, while Page 5 has the rest. The latter document also lists most of her 1945 voyages. See also Page 6, which lists voyages to March-1946. Convoy information for some of them can be found in the Voyage Record above.

Sold in July-1960 to Olaf Pedersens Rederi A/S, Oslo and renamed Sunny Duke. Sold in Oct.-1964 to Time Lines (Panama) Ltd. (Winston Ltd., Hong Kong, Shun on Shipping Corp.), Panama and renamed Tynshon. Arrived Kaohsiung for breaking up on Apr. 1-1970.

Back to Granville on the "Ships starting with G" page.

There was a Panamanian steamship by the name Granville, built 1913, 4071 gt - torpedoed and sunk on March 17-1943, 900 miles southwest of Cape Farewell on a voyage New York-Iceland with the loss of 12 men.

The text on this page was compiled with the help of: "Nortraships flåte", J. R. Hegland, Captain Løvik's story of his time at sea, E-mails from R. W. jordan, and misc. (ref. My sources).