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

M/S Roseville Updated May 21-2012

To Roseville on the "Ships starting with R" page.

From Bjørn Milde's postcard collection.

Manager: A. F. Klaveness & Co. A/S, Oslo
Tonnage: 5745 gt

Delivered in July-1930 from Odense Staalskibsværft, Odense, Denmark as cargoliner Roseville to Skibs-AS Goodwill (A. F. Klaveness & Co. A/S), Oslo. Steel hull, 445.4’ x 58.5’ x 25.1’, 5745 gt, 9265 tdwt, 2 x 6cyl 4tev Burmeister & Wain dm totalling 4500bhp, 13.5 knots.

Captain: ? Balstad, later (briefly) Karl Johan Løvik (previously of Granville - later served on Fernglen and Stirlingville. See also this external page).
1st Mate was Kaare T. Sylling.

From May-1945 until Nov. that same year, Roseville had a female radio operator, namely the Canadian Margaret Benham, who had previously served on M/S Høegh Silverlight. My page about Mosdale has the names of several other Canadian radio operators, along with the names of their ships. See also YL Radio - an external page about the Canadian female RO's on Norwegian ships.

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

As will be seen when going to Page 1 of the archive documents, Roseville was on her way from San Francisco to Manila when war broke out in Norway on Apr. 9-1940. Her 1941 voyages also start on this document and continue on Page 2.

Misc. Voyages – 1941-1944:

It will be noticed that some of the dates in this narrative do not match up with the dates found on the above archive documents.

According to a story written by a crew member Roseville had departed San Francisco on Nov. 2-1941 (compare w/Page 3) with a full load for Hong Kong, and also had 12 passengers on board (as well as 22 cows on deck, meant for Singapore). On the night leading up to Dec. 7-1941 (Pearl Harbor attack) she was not far from Honolulu when she at 02:00 very narrowly avoided a collision with a Japanese aircraft carrier; in fact the sides of the 2 ships scraped together causing sparks to fly (this might be a tad exagerated?). By 04:00 that morning they spotted Japanese submarines in the area, and a ship in front and one behind them was torpedoed and sunk*. Roseville adopted a zig-zag course and escaped unharmed. Later that day she was ordered in to Honolulu where chaos reigned. Her cargo was unloaded there and she ended up staying at Honolulu until the end of Jan.-1942 at which time she returned in convoy to San Francisco where she was subsequently converted to troop transport (it'll be noticed, when going back to the archive document, that she remained in San Francisco for several weeks). On charter to the US Army from the spring of 1942 and through the rest of the war. From March 1942 till July 1943 she made 4 trips between the U.S.A. and Australia. On a voyage in 1943 she again narrowly avoided a collision when on a dark night a ship appeared, going in the opposite direction. In addition to her regular rescue equipment Roseville had some extra cork rafts on her sides and as it passed, the unknown ship scraped against her starboard side, taking these rafts with it. Roseville had ammunition and about 800 soldiers on board at the time.

* Checking with J. Rohwer I find that he lists 2 American ships as sunk by Japanese subs around the date mentioned above, namely Cynthia Olsen, torpedoed and sunk by I-26, 1000 n. miles northeast of Hawaii, and Royal T. Frank, torpedoed and shelled by I-72, both on Dec. 8 (the latter was an army minelayer serving as an inter-island freighter, said to have been sunk 2 n. miles west of Maui). However, Jan-Olof Hendig, Sweden has informed me that Royal T. Frank was not lost on that date, nor did I-72 make any attacks on Dec. 8 - But there's a General Royal T. Frank listed as sunk by I-71, about 2 miles west of Maui, on Jan. 29-1942 on this external page. Here's the same site's page for I-72. As can be seen, no attacks are mentioned for the date in question. See also this external page. (Links provided by Jan-Olof).

Her 1943 voyages also start on Page 3 and continue on Page 4, and as can be seen, she occasionally had long stays in port.

Captain from Oct.-1943 was Karl Johan Løvik who had previously been the captain of Granville. He had also served on Roseville as 2nd and 1st mate earlier, and now took over command while Captain Balstad was on leave. Captain Løvik's story, which includes some of Roseville's voyages, can be found in Norwegian via the first external link below. He mentions that Roseville had had a nasty collision when bound for Australia just before he joined her, and required repairs in San Francisco before they could go to sea again. This meant she was not ready to leave until Jan. 8-1944, heading for Vanimi north of Los Angeles to load war stores. On Jan. 14 and 15, the troops came on board (Seabees). Captain Løvik says she had 3 radio operators and 10 gunners (she had a 3" and a 4" gun, as well as 10 Oerlikons) and was able to carry about 750 people in addition to her regular crew but had only 5 lifeboats and 6 rafts. She also had a fully equipped hospital with 10 beds. On the 16th she left for Milne Bay, New Guinea, with arrival Febr. 10. Having unloaded her cargo and troops, Roseville returned to the U.S., with arrival San Francisco at the end of Apr.-1944 (compare w/Page 4). Captain Balstad came back from his leave, and Captain Løvik paid off to join Fernglen, later Stirlingville.

Page 4 also shows some of her 1945 voyages, while the rest are listed on Page 5.

Sold in 1960 to Olaf Pedersens Rederi A/S, Oslo, renamed Sunny Lady. Sold in 1964 to Time Lines (Panama) Ltd. (Winston Ltd.- Shun On Shipping Corp., Hong Kong / Panama), renamed Tyon. Sold in 1971 to unknown ship breakers at Kaohsiung, Taiwan for breaking up, arriving Apr. 28-1971.

Related external links:
Lilleand Sjømannsforening has Captain Løvik's story - text is in Norwegian, scroll down on the page for his WW II experiences.

YL Radio - A page about the Canadian female RO's on Norwegian ships.

Back to Roseville on the "Ships starting with R" page.

The text on this page was compiled with the help of: The Norwegian magazine "Krigsseileren", "Axis Submarine Successes of World War II, Jürgen Rohwer, and misc. (ref. My sources). Pre war and post war details were received from T. Eriksen, Norway - His source: Article about A. F. Klaveness & Co. A/S by Dag Bakka jr. in Skipet 2.86