WW2 Canadian, Australian and New Zealand Transport

[David Dunlop]

I was sitting here with a cup of tea thinking over various things World War Two related, and it struck me I know very little about the lines of communication and transport that existed across the Pacific from Canada to Australia and New Zealand during the war. I think I have always assumed the Japanese control of the southern Pacific area was so tight, there wasn't any meaningful traffic and any shipping or air movement took the long way round from Europe.

Take the CMP/Blitz, for example. How did they get established in Australia? Directly from Canada via the Canadian West Coast, or via Europe to North Africa to South Africa to Australia and New Zealand?

There were frequent flights from Canada and the USA to Europe via Northern and Southern Atlantic routes. Were any similar flights done across the Pacific via Hawaii, Fiji…?


David

[Lynn Eades]

I would suspect that most of it went to sea via the St Lawrence sea way, down around the Horn and across. I heard there was a well used submarine base in the Perth area that was used by a number of allied nations, in defence of those ships. My knowledge is vague at best, so I await your responses with interest.

[maple_leaf_eh]

Ships, more ships, brave men and a tolerance for sunk ships. Not many aircraft of the day had legs to go across the Pacific, even with refueling stops.

[Mike Cecil]

Across the sea in ships....

There were various routes, and their dominance depended upon enemy submarine and surface ship activity to a certain extent.

From Canada, freight destined for Australia such as Blitz trucks went mostly down the US east coast, across the Carib. and through the Panama Canal, then across the Pacific to NZ and Australia. When losses mounted to an unacceptable degree in the Carib., significant proportions of the trucks, etc were shipped by train to the US and CDN west coast, and loaded there for transit across the Pacific. All these were mostly free running voyages.

Aust and NZ products headed for Canada, USA and Britain went either across the Pacific, through the canal, across the Carib. and up the east coast, often 'free running' (not in convoy, not escorted) to US and CDN east coast ports. There, ships for GB would be allocated to a convoy for the cross-Atlantic run. Same in reverse.

Or the other route (to Britain) was west across the Great Australia Bight, then north west across the Indian Ocean to Kenya or west direct to Capetown then up the African west coast.

Losses of Blitz trucks headed for Australia were in the thousands, along with smaller numbers of aircraft. Also rifles, web equipment and other military items. Likewise, Australian goods headed for the UK, Canada and the USA had a loss rate, mostly on the Carib. and Atlantic legs of the voyages. The Pacific was not immune, but the Japanese submarine warfare was not as wide ranging/intensive as that waged by the Germans in the Atlantic and the ocean was a hell of a lot bigger. (So the Japanese tended to concentrate on choke points rather than chance encounters on the open ocean, as to a certain extent, did the Germans in the Carib.)

The CMP was made by Ford and Chev - the two dominant vehicle types on Aust roads before WW2. Both Ford Canada and GM Canada had 'parented' Australian operations in the 1920s, and had the infrastructure in place to support the assembly and rebuilding of Blitz trucks.

Mike C

[Keith Webb]

I didn't realise they were lost in such numbers coming to Australia.

I wonder who shouldered the bill for those. I assume the ones we ordered were paid for by the Australian government, but were they C.O.D as it were or once they left the factory?

I imagine those losses were ours rather than Ford Canada.

[Ganmain Tony]

In a distant part of my memory I seem to remember German Surface Raiders contributing significantly to allied merchant vessel tonnage losses as well..

[Mike Cecil]

Hence my comment 'submarine and surface raider' although by the time the Blitz trucks were being transported to Australia in qty, the threat from German surface ships (raiders) had diminished significantly.

An example of loss was the Port Huon (July 1942):sunk with over 2,000 chassis, mostly CMP, aboard, and a deck cargo of 14 aircraft, all destined for Oz.

Payment was Aust government, but how and when depended upon the mode of supply: US Lend Lease, Canadian Mutal Aid, or cash purchases direct from manufacturers. The first two were a post-war balancing of Aust supplied against US/CDN supplied, while cash was, well, cash ie immediate.

Mike C

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Mike Cecil

Both Ford Canada and GM Canada had 'parented' Australian operations in the 1920s, and had the infrastructure in place to support the assembly and rebuilding of Blitz trucks.

Likewise Ford and GM in NZ, India, and South Africa - all were established by Ford and GM Canada as wholly owned subsidiaries, operating under the old Commonwealth arrangements which afforded Canada export priveleges over the US. They were acquired by Ford and GM USA some time after WW2.

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Keith Webb

I didn't realise they were lost in such numbers coming to Australia. I wonder who shouldered the bill for those.

Merchant vessels and their cargoes were insured, just as in peacetime. Premiums varied according to vessel type, shipping route, free running or in convoy, etc. etc. Business is business!

[Mike Cecil]

Tony,

In general terms that's true for unchartered ships carrying mixed cargoes (civilian trade cargo or civilian and military mixed) and for charter ships (ships on govt. charter from private owners), but it also depended upon the nature of the use and which controller -US, CDN, Australian or British - as to the nature and extent of the coverage.

Ships from 'enemy' countries taken as a prize of war were used as if they were wholly owned by the Commonwealth (or British government), for example the Danish ships Anglo-Maersk and Astoria, taken over in 1940 (along with their cargoes), or the Italian Remo, seized at gun-point in the open ocean after fleeing an Australian port. The Danish had to go to court at the end of the war to recover their ships by court order.

The Brits also chartered ships such as the Kanimbla from Australian shipping companies for use as Merchant Cruisers early in the war, and later, these were transferred to Australian Govt. Charter and used as Merchant Cruisers, Landing Ships and transports until well after the end of WW2. These ships were on an outright government payment for loss or damage basis at a pre-determined rate. The government also paid for the refurbishment back to a passenger carrying vessel at the time of the cessation of the charter.

Mike C

[alamotex]

Originally Posted by Mike Cecil

An example of loss was the Port Huon (July 1942):sunk with over 2,000 chassis, mostly CMP, aboard, and a deck cargo of 14 aircraft, all destined for Oz.
Mike C

Mike Where did you aquire such info re shipping losses and their cargos ? I have good reason to believe that most of the 600 odd GL III(c) gunlaying radars manufactured in Canada by Research Enterprises Ltd were shipped across the Atlantic to the UK where many were transhipped to other war zones. I would be most interested to learn how many never reached their intended destination due to shipping losses. I suspect that one of the destinations was Russia via the Murmansk run.

Cheers Brian

[Mike Cecil]

Hi Brian,

The sources are varied: the best place to start is 'Lloyds Shipping Losses of WW2', a 2 volume set detailing all known ship loss and damage for whatever reason. Rare book and expensive if you can find a copy. Jordan's Merchant Ship Fleets 1939 is another good source of info, but tends to repeat the basic data in Lloyds when it comes to losses.

I combine these with data from Australian government sources such as shipping reports, cablegrams, survivor notifications, convoy reports, overseas orders and re-orders (they often give the reason for re-ordering) for munitions and the like. No one source provides a complete picture, but it is not a bad start.

Alas, my concentration on Australia relevant data means I have little on items not going from or to Australia, so nothing on the radar sets you refer to.

Mike C

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Mike Cecil

it also depended upon the nature of the use and which controller -US, CDN, Australian or British - as to the nature and extent of the coverage.

Yes I'm aware there were some rather complex arrangements entered into Mike, notably between the British Govt. and the Norwegian merchant fleet, which under exiled Norwegian requisition formed the worlds largest shipping company. Unlike the Danish fleet it wasn't confiscated by the Brits, but as you mention it was some time after the war before accounts were finally settled and vessels returned to their legal owners in fit state.

I find it quite fascinating how war and commerce coexisted in WW2, and I'm reminded of the story of MV San Demetriou, a British merchant tanker which sailed in convoy from Halifax with a load of aviation fuel, and was attacked by a German cruiser in mid-Atlantic. With the vessel ablaze the crew abandoned ship, but after two freezing nights in a lifeboat they spotted it still afloat, and despite being still ablaze they decided to reboard and attempt to resume passage. Amazingly enough they reached Ireland a week later, with most of the aviation fuel still unconsumed by fire, and having received no assistance from another vessel, and the captain having been picked up in the other lifeboat, they were legally entitled to salvage money of several thousand pounds, which they were duly awarded in court!

It was the subject of a movie at the time, titled "San Demetriou, London", which I highly recommend to anyone who hasn't seen it before. It crops every now and then on late night TV so you may need to record it like I did!

[alamotex]

Thanks Mike 86 of those GL III(c) radar sets were shipped to OZ sometime in 1943 (or perhaps early 1944) and we know that all arrived safely. A contingent of Canadian technical personnel was sent out to provide training and assistance. This has been well documented and just one or two of those personnel are still alive today...I correspond with one of them.

Cheers Brian

[Mike Cecil]

Yes, Tony, the commercial aspects ... 'business as usual' ... seemed to prevail and the Australian government were very conscious about maintaining exports and a balance of trade.

I'm not sure many people appreciate (as you do) just how much of the merchant fleets used/chartered by the Allies during the war were essentially foreign: much of the military hardware transported to and from Australia went on Dutch, Greek, Danish, Norwegian, and other, 'non-Dominion' shipping. Many were equipped with defensive armament (eg deck guns and paravanes) in Australian ports and in some instances manned by Australian service personnel.

Mike C

[David Dunlop]

Back in the 1960's I had a summer job with a Winnipeg Grain Company and our Commodities Department shared an office with the Export Department. They used to have a set of large, red, leather bound journals published by Lloyd's in Export which they referenced when arranging to ship goods. I recall they gave a pretty complete description and history of each vessel contained therein, and the records went back at least ten years or more with regards to noting when a ship had been lost at sea, scrapped, or was in for overhaul somewhere. Quite an interesting read.

Canada operated a large merchant fleet during the war, but I can think of only one foreign vessel they took over. I believe it was an Italian cargo ship that tried to make a run for it down the St. Lawrence, when Italy declared war. It was intercepted around Rimouski, QC and added to the Canadian Fleet. I think a U-Boat finally sank it on the way to Britain a couple of years later.

David

[alamotex]

Originally Posted by alamotex

Thanks Mike 86 of those GL III(c) radar sets were shipped to OZ sometime in 1943 (or perhaps early 1944) and we know that all arrived safely. A contingent of Canadian technical personnel was sent out to provide training and assistance. This has been well documented and just one or two of those personnel are still alive today...I correspond with one of them.

Cheers Brian

The following was written by my WW II Canadian Army radar veteran friend reminiscing about an incident that occurred to him and his buddy, shipbound to New Guinea.


>Meanwhile I have been thinking of times past where you and I were
>involved and the sea voyage from San Francisco to New Guinea and
>eventually to Australia came to mind. That was a long voyage from S
>F to Milne Bay, New Guinea; 29 days without stopping or setting foot
>on solid land. Or even seeing land except for a couple of brief
>views of islands which we passed.
>
>You will recall that six of us went on the Norwegian freighter the
>MS Roseville: three warrant officers, you, Blackie and I and three
>officers; Ernie Duvernet, Bruce Brock and Dag Davidge. There were
>quite a few other passengers but we were the only Canadians.
>
>Two or three funny things happened during our voyage and on our way
>from Port Moresby down to Sydney.
>
>The first had to do with the Oerlikon guns which we were assigned to
>man in case of an encounter with Japanese forces. I was paired with
>Bruce Brock and you were on the other side of the ship on another
>gun with Ernie Duvernet.
>There were about eight oerlikons, four on each side of the ship and
>a naval gun fore and aft. We did not expect any excitement but one
>night about halfway across the Pacific the ship's alarm bells
>started to ring and we were rousted out of bed up on deck in the
>pitch black to man our guns. This was getting interesting. The ship
>was zigging and zagging furiously and we fully expected to come
>under fire or be torpedoed at any moment.
>
>Now we had had about five minutes instruction on handling the guns
>and had not even seen one fired. When I arrived at our gun at the
>port side of the ship, Bruce was already there. I said to him "Do
>you remember how to fire this thing?" and he said "No". That was not
>very encouraging!
>
>So we stood by in the dark hoping that a Jap destroyer or sub would
>not appear and feeling pretty useless because if that did happen we
>would not be able to fire our gun.
>
>Finally after quite a long time the all clear sounded and the ship
>steadied up and we went back to bed.
>
>In the morning of course the ship was a-buzz with stories of the
>night before and we began to hear a rumour that the whole thing was
>a false alarm called in by one of the Norwegian gunners on watch who
>had reported that he saw the wake of a torpedo go past our stern.
>
>The theory was that the gunners were not happy with the captain who
>insisted on leaving one mast light on all night despite the ruling
>that all lights had to be doused. The story was that the captain was
>afraid of colliding with another ship during the night because he
>had had that happen previously with the Roseville.
>
>Incidentally just recently I looked up the history of the Roseville
>on the Web and sure enough it had been in a collision with another
>ship a year or so prior to our getting on board. The accident had
>necessitated a lot of repair. It is amazing what you can find on the
>Internet. There was a photo of the Roseville which I sent to you.
>Not a very impressive ship.
>
>It is amazing what time will do to one's memories. One of our
>officers whom I will not name was sure in recent years that a sub
>had surfaced and fired shells at us on that occasion. At one of our
>reunions I assured him that there was no sub and no attack.
>
>Do you remember all that?
>So whether this alarm was a false one or not the story circulating
>sounded somewhat feasible.
>
>The story of this incident got out as four of the passengers were
>old-timer war correspondents and this was grist to their mills. The
>next day a US flying boat appeared circling the ship before flying
>off back to wherever. So obviously radio messages had been sent out
>during the "attack".


This WW II veteran is in his 90's Cheers Brian

[Mike Cecil]

David,

I think that would be the Capo Noli, captured in the StL Seaway by HMCS Bras d'Or on 10 June 1940, and renamed the SS Bic Island. She was sunk by U224 on 29 October 1942, with the tragic loss of all hands and the rescued survivors of two other merchant ships.

I think you'll find there were a small number of prize vessels on the Canadian register during WW2 from a variety of countries: Finland, Denmark, Germany and Italy. I think this was the only Italian vessel. Carolus was ex-Finland, and MV Europa was ex-Danish. Vancouver Island was ex-German. Certainly an interesting period in shipping history!

Brian: what a great recollection! And gives us the ship that some of the Canadians travelled on, too. The MV Roseville is listed as a cargo ship with capacity for 12 first class passengers. Wonder how many they crammed into that space during the war.

Mike C

[motto]

What an interesting thread! A glimpse of the legal ramifications and nuts and bolts of maritime warfare.

Of course, the precedence in regards to commercial shipping operations during time of war had been set and refined over hundreds of years and were well understood. Even global war and ocean wide operations were nothing new.

As an example. During the war of 1812 the Royal Navy blockaded the entire East Coast of the United States at the same time as strangling all French ports and shipping. This inevitably involved interfering with shipping of other nations. The legal implications were awesome and also had to be dealt with.

Lloyds of London were not about to close their doors for the duration.

David

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Mike Cecil

much of the merchant fleets used/chartered by the Allies during the war were essentially foreign: much of the military hardware transported to and from Australia went on Dutch, Greek, Danish, Norwegian, and other, 'non-Dominion' shipping.

It's a good point you make Mike, we tend to regard such countries as having been sidelined by German occupation, but of course the bulk of their shipping remained at sea and made a huge contribution to the Allied war effort. We also forget that relatively small countries like Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands were possessed of enormous merchant fleets, dating from their historical association with the Baltic trade. It would be interesting to know the actual figures, but I suspect that in the early years of WW2, perhaps a third of Allied merchant shipping was foreign. Given that shipping was the limiting factor in Allied strategy, it's difficult to overestimate that contribution.

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by motto

Even global war and ocean wide operations were nothing new. As an example. During the war of 1812 the Royal Navy blockaded the entire East Coast of the United States at the same time as strangling all French ports and shipping. This inevitably involved interfering with shipping of other nations.

...meanwhile Napoleon blockaded the Baltic to deny the British their lucrative trade routes, thus interfering with even more nations shipping!

An even earlier example of global maritime warfare/commerce would be the various East India Trading Companies - British, Dutch, Portuguese, Danish, French, Swedish - who roamed the world's seas in heavily armed gunships, plying their trade and conquering new empires as they went, and routinely engaging eachother on the high seas to defend their sales territory! This went on for a couple of centuries, with the British EITC ultimately prevailing - hence the British Empire, with a few crumbs left for the rest to colonize!

As you say David it's an interesting thread, although we seem to have digressed a bit from CMP shipments!

[David Dunlop]

With regards to Dutch shipping during WW2, my Mum travelled in a convoy from Liverpool to Algeria aboard the SS Volendam in late 1941 early 1942. She was with the NAAFI at the time.

With regards to the wartime CMP activity across the Pacific, firstly, 'Holden' is associated with General Motors in Australia. Where were Ford's operations based? Also, did most sea traffic arrive at one particular port, or was it spread around as much as possible? I seem to remember reading about a large military base somewhere on the West Coast of Australia where a number of CMP vehicles were abandoned after the war. Not sure I ever heard why.

David

[Keith Webb]

Ford were based (and still are there) in Geelong which is a port city not far from Melbourne. The main General Motors Holden factory was at Fishermens Bend which is adjacent to Melbourne. GM-H assembled CMPs in most Australian capital cities. They also had greater body building facilities and were responsible for most of the locally built GS bodies as well as a lot of the specialised bodies on CMPs here.
Ford did build some of the specialised bodies for their own chassis such as No8 and 9 gun tractors, while GM-H also built their own version, which may seem strange for small production runs but they had integral cabs which had different floors.

Originally Posted by David Dunlop

With regards to Dutch shipping during WW2, my Mum travelled in a convoy from Liverpool to Algeria aboard the SS Volendam in late 1941 early 1942. She was with the NAAFI at the time.

With regards to the wartime CMP activity across the Pacific, firstly, 'Holden' is associated with General Motors in Australia. Where were Ford's operations based? Also, did most sea traffic arrive at one particular port, or was it spread around as much as possible? I seem to remember reading about a large military base somewhere on the West Coast of Australia where a number of CMP vehicles were abandoned after the war. Not sure I ever heard why.

David

[Mike Cecil]

Regarding the proportion of the world's Merchant Fleet operated by each country at the outbreak of war in 1939, I had a quick look at Roger Jordan's excellent reference "The Worlds Merchant Fleets 1939", and the relative proportions of pages devoted to each country is interesting. The pages are all formatted the same way, so the numbers of ships in each country's fleet is very, very roughly proportional to the number of pages in the book devoted to each country.

Denmark: 12 pages
Finland: 8 pages
GB & Dominions: 119 pages (!) (Unfortunately, the countries are all mixed in alpha order of the shipping company name, so impossible to easily differentiate by each Empire country)
Greece: 22 pages
Norway: 50 pages
Netherlands: 21 pages
USA: 55 pages

By contrast, The main Axis countries:

Germany: 32 pages
Japan: 21 pages
Italy: 22 pages


Mike C

[Mike Cecil]

Hi David,

""With regards to Dutch shipping during WW2, my Mum travelled in a convoy from Liverpool to Algeria aboard the SS Volendam in late 1941 early 1942. She was with the NAAFI at the time.""

Algeria was Vichy French, I think, and was not invaded until the Op Torch landings in November 1942?

If she travelled in the SS Volendam in early 1942, maybe she was headed to Suez on convoy WS16, via Freetown and Cape Town?

Mike C

[David Dunlop]

Thanks for the info. Mum's just turned 90 in March and her memory is not as sharp as it used to be and sadly, her NAAFI Records were lost in a fire in London in the 1950's.

I do know she met my Dad while in Algeria. The Camp the NAAFI were in was called Camp Sircouf (don't quote my spelling), on the coast, just East of Algiers. By that time, my Dad was a Staff Sgt with the QOCHofC and was on assignment with some sort of team from the Canadian Army that had gone to Algeria to study the possibility of setting up a Canadian Military Hospital somewhere there. Don't know whatever came of that project. Dad was there at least long enough to qualify for the North Africa Star. Have no idea how long that would have meant he stayed.

Have some photos of Mum's from there. She met quite a few Australian and New Zealand Troops while there and apparently had an Italian POW working in the camp as a cook. He was a baker before the war and taught Mum Italian. Sorry for the side bar!

David

[Mike Cecil]

David,

Do your Dad's records still exist? Maybe we can narrow down a time line by his arrival/departure from Algeria? Worth a thought.

The ship was well-used throughout the war for trooping: returned to the Netherlands post-war. Broken up in the 1950s.

Mike C

[David Dunlop]

I will see what I can find in my Dad's files and revisit the NAAFI with Mum and pick this up in the YOUR RELATIVES Thread.

Thanks, Mike


David

[David Dunlop]

With regards to wartime production activities in Australia and New Zealand, and looking at it 'from the outside', how much did the two countries rely on each other for equipment?

For example, the SMLE was produced at Lithgow for the Australian military and at least some of this production went to New Zealand for conversion to an indigenous machine gun manufactured there. CAC built aircraft in Australia but I am not sure if any of this equipment went to New Zealand. Not to mention delivery of American equipment to both countries.

What other production/exchange took place?

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by David Dunlop

Dad was there at least long enough to qualify for the North Africa Star. Have no idea how long that would have meant he stayed.

Qualification for campaign medals was one day's operational service in the prescribed area during the prescribed period.

Until recently I could never figure out how a France and Germany Star came to be amongst my father's war service medals. Turns out he was posted to 451 Sqn RAAF who were reforming in Marseille between campaigns. He travelled up there from Italy but there'd been a stuff up so they sent him back three days later. Mystery solved!