Hamden, great thread, thanks for starting it!

Lefty, congrats on your new find! Like you said, now you have one from each of the May 1940 shipments.

Quite a while back, I started researching ship transports between NY and Capetown, S.A. and came up with a quite a few. Two ships in particular, the West Isleta and the West Cawthon (Carthon), made the trip fairly regularly. However, they both stopped making the NY-Capetown run around the end of May and the beginning of June 1940. These ships were privately owned up until this time when ownership was transferred to the British Ministry of War Transport (MoWT),and renamed Empire Merlin and Empire Bison.

Both ships started their transatlantic crossings and sailed in convoys from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Liverpool in May and June of 1940 (Empire Merlin departed Halifax on May 28th in Convoy HX-46 and the Empirie Bison on July 15th in Convoy HX-58 arriving in Liverpool on July 31, 1940).

The Empire Merlin was sunk on her return voyage departing Liverpool on July 5, 1940. Empire Bison made her next few crossings safely, but unfortunately was sunk on a crossing between Halifax and Liverpool on November 1, 1940.

I guess we may never know for sure when or where these BSR guns shipped after arriving in NY, but from Peter's information, we know they were diverted from their original destination.

I'll continue my research and see what develops. There were many ships in and out of NY during this time period. The West Cawthon/Empire Bison has caught my attention. After arriving in NY on her regular run from Capetown on June 6, 1940 she sat at the dock for over a month, awaiting a new Captain and crew, before joining a convoy out of Halifax for her first transatlantic crossing to Liverpool.

Linda

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Linda
SWCA #1965, SWHF #245