Convoy RB-1
21-30 SEPTEMBER 1942
CONVOY RB-1
In the decades before practical automobile transportation, Americans traveling between cities of the eastern United States often did so by way of intercoastal steamer. Numerous private steamship companies offered passenger service on 200-400-foot, shallow draft screw steamers in the Chesapeake, Delaware, and Long Island estuaries. With the coming of WWII, the British requested under the Lend-Lease program any fast, shallow draft steamers that might be useful for transporting men and supplies across the English Channel. Thus, several intercoastal packet steamers were transferred to the British Ministry of War Transport in June of 1942. These included the SS Yorktown and President Warfield of the Old Bay Line, Boston and New York of the Eastern Steamship Line, the Chesapeake packets Northland and Southland, and the Nantucket steamers Nashuon and New Bedford. All assembled in St. Johns, Newfoundland, to await British crews and escorts for the trans-Atlantic crossing. Not having been built for the open ocean, the wait was used to shore their bows and superstructures against the boarding seas expected in the U-boat infested North Atlantic.
On this day the eight flat-bottomed steamers formed Convoy RB-1 (River Boat-1) and departed for England. Shepherded by the destroyers HMS VETERAN and HMS VANOC, the first three days were uneventful. Then suddenly, around noon on the 25th Boston (convoy flagship) disappeared in the fireball of a German torpedo. Panic struck the rest of the convoy as sailors darted for guns that had been hastily bolted to the decks in St. Johns. For several hours the steamers zig-zagged, and would-be periscope wakes were riddled by nervous gunners. President Warfield and VETERAN even teamed up to prosecute a sonar contact, claiming a probable kill. But at dusk a second steamer, New York, was hit and rolled over. HMS VETERAN, her decks already crowded with survivors from Boston, slowed to begin fishing sailors from the oily waters, but was quickly torn apart by third torpedo from U-404. She rolled and went down with all hands.
Aboard Yorktown the tension was palpable as she steamed into the evening. Then just before sundown her steering engine failed. The rest of the convoy disappeared over the horizon, leaving her a “sitting duck” while repairs were effected. She was underway again the next morning, having apparently gone unnoticed by prowling U-boats. Then, about 0900 a violent explosion broke her back. Her survivors were rescued two days later. German radio crackled in the days that followed with reports of the sinking of several “Queen Mary-class liners” in a “fierce battle” with an “American troop convoy.”
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 27 SEP 23
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 5 “N-Q”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1979, p. 375.
Holly, David C. Exodus 1947, (rev ed). Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1995, pp. 21-29.
Morison, Samuel Eliot. History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol 1 The Battle of the Atlantic. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co., 1947, pp. 323-24.
Wynn, Kenneth. U-Boat Operations of the Second World War Vol 1: Career Histories, U1-U510. Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1997, p. 267.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: The loss of 4 of 10 ships from this convoy was not unusual for North Atlantic convoys in 1942, so effective was the German U-boat effort. And the outlandish German claims in no way diminish the sacrifice of the 131 British merchant mariners who died bringing this convoy to England. The Germans claimed two of the “liners” sunken to be Duchess of Bedford and the Spanish Reina del Pacifico. Both of these liners had indeed been converted for troop transport, but in truth, both survived the war.
At least three of the above steamers, President Warfield, Southland and Northland, served the British only temporarily. They were transferred back to the US Navy in 1944 and participated in the D-Day invasion of Normandy. PRESIDENT WARFIELD (IX-169) was to earn even greater fame following the war. She was purchased by a secret organization smuggling Jewish immigrants to Palestine. Her name in this role changed to Exodus 1947 and she became the titular inspiration for the Leon Uris novel.
