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Location
At Sea - Curacao - Manchester (Stanlow)
Age
18 Years

21st May 1941

At about 5 o’clock last night, a pretty strong wind got up and blew all signs of the fog away in about 2 minutes. Having performed this useful service, it died down again, and we were entertained by a beautiful sunset.

We sighted the Halifax portion of the convoy at about 5.30, and by dusk we were as one. It certainly is a mighty big convoy now, there having been about 48 ships in the other convoy, what with the 11 in ours, it spreads over quite an area.

All told, there are approx. 20 tankers here, and we can, at a very modest estimate, say that each is capable of carrying 10,000 tns of cargo, this making a total of 200,000 which is probably nearer a quarter of a million! Then we can assume that the remaining 30 odd ships can carry 9,000 tns each which makes 270,000 tns of general cargo, the total being easily half a million tons of. Last night two more messages came through of ships having been torpedoed in the same area as the others, two other ships had sighted subs on the surface in that area.

We have as our new escort, the “Ramilles”, a battleship of 29 odd 1,000 tns displacement, mounting 8-15 inch guns, 12-6”and 8-4”and having a speed of about 23 knts. Another battleship of class – the “Malaya” – was torpedoed while on convoy work. She is now in New York. Previously had “thrown” shells at Genoa.