Canadian Star
.jpg) |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
The Canadian Star (I) was a motor ship operated by the British shipping company Blue Star Line that carried cargo and passengers from Great Britain to Australia and New Zealand . On March 18, 1943, the Canadian Star was sunk by a German submarine while driving in a convoy south of Greenland . 34 passengers and crew members were killed.
The ship
The 8293 GRT motor ship Canadian Star was built with its two identical sister ships California Star (I) (8300 BRT) and Columbia Star (I) (8293 BRT) at Burmeister & Wain in Copenhagen . They were primarily built as cargo ships that could use refrigeration equipment to transport large quantities of food, especially frozen meat, to South America and Australia. But they could also carry passengers.
The 136.30 meter long and 18.35 meter wide Canadian Star was powered by six-cylinder SCDA diesel engines from Burmeister & Wain, which developed 1236 nominal horsepower and allowed a top speed of 13 knots. The ship had a funnel and a propeller . The Canadian Star was launched on October 20, 1938 and entered service in February 1939. She was still a new ship when the war broke out.
First attack and defense
In the early hours of the morning of July 20, 1941, the solo ship, following a zigzag course, with passengers, mail and cargo on board, was under the command of Captain Charles JW Jones on a voyage from Liverpool via Curaçao to Auckland . At 1:00 a.m., it was sighted by the German submarine U 126 (Oberleutnant zur See Ernst Bauer ) about 650 miles west of Land's End and followed for almost two hours until Bauer fired two G7 torpedoes at 2:42 a.m. The Canadian Star was able to avoid both torpedoes because the blister acid was detected in good time due to its phosphorescence . At the time, the chief officer, Percival Hunt, was on guard duty.
Bauer therefore decided to attack the ship with artillery fire and dropped grenades on the Canadian Star for about ten minutes . He scored three hits, but had to stop the attack as the ship returned fire. Shortly afterwards he broke off the attack completely because the Canadian Star fled at top speed and he had no chance of catching up with her with his submarine. On July 30, 1941, the Canadian Star arrived in Curaçao, where the damage was repaired. For the successful defense of the ship and the lives on board, Captain Jones and his crew were congratulated and honored by the Admiralty .
Second attack and sinking
On March 8, 1943, the Canadian Star left the port of New York as part of the convoy HX 229 , which consisted of a total of 40 ships. After the heavy losses of allied merchant shipping space in the first phase of the war, merchant ships were combined into large convoys, which were strongly secured by warships and escort ships. The command was no longer Captain Jones, but Captain Robert David Miller. On board were 56 crew members, 8 artillerymen, 24 passengers and 7806 tons of cargo, including frozen meat, cheese and butter. The Canadian Star had previously come from Sydney with stops in Cristóbal and Key West and had Liverpool as its final destination.
During the first four days at sea, the weather was clear and calm and the convoy followed a continuous course in a northeasterly direction. Beyond the Newfoundland Bank , the convoy turned north and swung east on March 12th. The weather worsened; a storm was looming from the northwest. On the morning of March 16, the ships reached the middle of the Atlantic . This region was difficult to reach because of the great distance to the nearest country for aircraft, which is why it was called the air gap . For this reason, submarines were stationed there at intervals of 30 kilometers to launch attacks on Allied convoy trains. The pack tactic was used.
In mid-March 1943, the submarine groups “Raubgraf”, “Stürmer” and “Dränger” arrived in the area and formed accordingly. The convoy SC-122 was still able to pass unmolested, as the submarines were not yet in their starting positions, but the convoy HX-229 drove right into it. The convoy of U 336 (Kapitänleutnant Hans Hunger) was sighted for the first time on March 16 . The first ship was attacked around 10 p.m. The attack continued in the early hours of March 17th. A total of eight ships were torpedoed before sunrise. The attacks dragged on over the following days. Several ships panicked and left the convoy and continued on their own at top speed.
On March 18, 1943 at 4:49 p.m. U 221 (Oberleutnant zur See Hans-Hartwig Trojer) shot down an area search torpedo (FAT) and two standard torpedoes at the merchant ship Walter Q. Gresham , which was on its maiden voyage and within the Convoys took Station No. 21. The FAT missed its target and detonated in the water, the other two torpedoes hit the Canadian Star , which was at Station No. 23. The torpedoes struck the engine room and compartment no. 5 on the port side , tore away a loading hatch and destroyed two lifeboats that had already swung out. The engines stopped and the ship came to a standstill as they had been hit directly by one of the torpedoes. The chart room was raised and devastated, and practically the entire middle section of the ship was destroyed.
The Canadian Star that had been hit sank quickly over the stern and sank in position 53.24N / 28.34W at 5.10 p.m. Passengers and crew had difficulties leaving the ship in the stormy weather. Many drowned because the lifeboats and rafts flooded and sank, while others died of exhaustion in the two hours before help arrived. The corvettes HMS Anemone and HMS Pennywort took in the survivors. Captain Miller, 22 crew members, two artillerymen and nine passengers (34 people in total) were killed in the sinking of the Canadian Star . 33 crew members, six artillerymen and 15 passengers (54 people) survived and were brought ashore on March 22nd in Gourock, Scotland. Captain Miller was posthumously awarded the Lloyd's War Medal for Bravery at Sea. Five other crew members were appointed Members of the Order of the British Empire.