The HX convoys were North Atlantic convoys which ran during the Battle of the Atlantic in the Second World War. They were east-bound convoys and originated in Halifax, Nova Scotia, from where they sailed to Liverpool and other ports in Britain. They absorbed the BHX convoys from Bermuda en route. Later, after the United States entered the war, HX convoys began at New York.
The HX series consisted of 377 convoy, with 17,744 ships. Thirty-eight convoys were attacked (about 10 per cent), with the loss of 110 ships in convoy; a further 60 lost straggling and 36 while detached or after dispersal, with losses from marine accident and other causes, for a total loss of 206 ships, or about 1 per cent of the total.[1]
Background
An HX series had run in the Atlantic Campaign of the First World War in 1917 and 1918.[2] HX convoys were revived in 1939 at the beginning of the Atlantic campaign and ran without major changes until the end, the longest continuous series of the war. HX 1 sailed on 16 September 1939 with 18 merchant ships, escorted by the Royal Canadian Navy destroyers HMCS St. Laurent and Saguenay to a North Atlantic rendezvous with Royal Navy heavy cruisers HMS Berwick and York.[3] HX 358 sailed on 23 May 1945 and arrived at Liverpool on 6 June 1945.[4] These were initially considered fast convoys made up of ships that could make 9–13 kn (17–24 km/h; 10–15 mph), the voyage from New York to Liverpool taking an average of 15.2 days. A parallel series of slow convoys (SC), was run for ships making 7.7–8 kn (14.3–14.8 km/h; 8.9–9.2 mph) took 15.4 days from Sydney, Nova Scotia.[5]
Ships making more than 13 kn (24 km/h; 15 mph) sailed independently; CU (Caribbean to United Kingdom) series were organised in 1943, most being US war-built tankers of 15 kn (28 km/h; 17 mph)+, which later included troop transports and fast merchant ships.[6] Outbound convoys were usually slower than return convoys and summer voyages usually faster than those in winter. Delays for diversions and bad weather could lead to escort vessels at the ocean rendezvous running low on fuel and having to return. A convoy that went way off course or unusually stormy or foggy weather made it very difficult for the convoy an its escorts to make rendezvous at all.[5] The largest convoy of World War II was Convoy HX 300 which sailed from New York to the UK on 25 July 1944, with 166 merchant ships and arrived at Liverpool without incident, on 3 August 1944.[7]
Convoy battles
As the HX convoys were comparatively fast convoys, they were less vulnerable to U-boat attack than the slow convoys but were the subject of some of the great convoy battles of the war. Forty convoys lost more than six ships, of which, five were in the HX series.
- Convoy HX 79 Attacked by a U-boat wolf pack in October 1940. Twelve ships were lost, which, with the attack on Convoy SC 7 on the same day made it the worst day for shipping losses of the Battle of the Atlantic.[8]
- Convoy HX 84 Attacked on 5 November 1940 by the German heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer. Five ships were quickly sunk but the sacrifice of the armed merchant cruiser HMS Jervis Bay and the armed merchant ship SS Beaverford along with failing light allowed the rest of the convoy to escape. The oil tanker San Demetrio was part of this convoy.[9]
- Convoy HX 106 On 8 February 1941 the two German battlecruisers, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau appeared over the horizon. The presence of the escorting battleship HMS Ramillies was enough to deter an attack.[10]
- Convoy HX 112 Attacked in March 1941, this battle was notable for seeing the loss to the Kriegsmarine (German navy) of two of its U-boat aces, Otto Kretschmer and Joachim Schepke.[11]
- Convoy HX 156 was being escorted by the United States Navy in October, 1941, when U-552 torpedoed USS Reuben James, the first US warship sunk in the Second World War.[12]
- Convoy HX 212 suffered the heaviest loss of any HX convoy in 1942.[13][14]
- Convoy HX 228 Was one of several convoys attacked sequentially in March 1943. Two U-boats were destroyed while sinking four merchant ships and the escort commander's destroyer.[15]
- Convoys HX 229/SC 122. Attacked in March 1943, this action converged with the operation around Convoy SC 122, was the largest convoy battle of the Atlantic campaign.[16]
Notes
- ↑ Hague 2000, p. 116.
- ↑ Newbolt 2003, p. 104.
- ↑ Rohwer & Hümmelchen 2005, p. 4; Roskill 1957, p. 93.
- ↑ Hague 2000, pp. 123, 129.
- 1 2 Roskill 1957, p. 345.
- ↑ Hague 2000, p. 38.
- ↑ Hague 2000, p. 129.
- ↑ Rohwer & Hümmelchen 2005, p. 44.
- ↑ Rohwer & Hümmelchen 2005, p. 48.
- ↑ Rohwer & Hümmelchen 2005, p. 58.
- ↑ Rohwer & Hümmelchen 2005, pp. 63, 65.
- ↑ Silverstone 1968, p. 9.
- ↑ Hague 2000, pp. 127–128.
- ↑ Rohwer & Hümmelchen 2005, pp. 203, 208.
- ↑ Rohwer & Hümmelchen 2005, pp. 236–239.
- ↑ Rohwer & Hümmelchen 2005, pp. 237–239.
References
- Hague, Arnold (2000). The Allied Convoy System 1939–1945. London: Chatham. ISBN 1-86176-147-3.
- Newbolt, H. J. (2003) [1931]. Naval Operations (accompanying Map Case). History of the Great War Based on Official Documents by Direction of the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence. Vol. V (facs. repr. Imperial War Museum Department of Printed books and Naval & Military Press, Uckfield ed.). London: Longmans, Green & Co. ISBN 978-1-84342-493-2 – via Archive Foundation.
- Rohwer, Jürgen; Hümmelchen, Gerhard (2005). Chronology of the War at Sea 1939–1945: The Naval History of World War Two (3rd rev. ed.). Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-59114-119-2.
- Roskill, S. W. (1957) [1954]. Butler, J. R. M. (ed.). The War at Sea 1939–1945: The Defensive. History of the Second World War United Kingdom Military Series. Vol. I (4th impr. ed.). London: HMSO. OCLC 881709135. Archived from the original on 27 February 2022.
- Silverstone, Paul H. (1968). US Warships of World War II. New York: Doubleday. OCLC 460376599.