Battles lost at sea, February 1941

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Hello,

According to the book "Air Britain RAF Aircraft L1000 - N9999" (no version known), four battles were lost at sea on 24 February 1941 on the way to SAAF. Serials L5056, L5057, L5431, L5563

I did not find a ship with aircraft aboard sunk on that date, but two days later, on 26 February, U-47 sank 2 ships of convoy OB290, one of them the Norwegian Borgland that was carrying six aircraft as deck cargo. It was sailing from Liverpool to Takoradi, so at least in the good direction.

https://uboat.net/allies/merchants/ship/791.html
https://www.warsailors.com/singleships/borgland.html

The convoy OB290 was then victim of two attacks of Fw 200 that sank eight more ships (one having been hit by U-47 before) according to warsailors.com. So the SAAF Battles could have been aboard other ships, with a destination to South Africa, but I don't know the cargo of the ships sunk by air attack.

One possibility is the British cargo Mahanada who was sailing to Table Bay and Port Said.
http://www.clydeships.co.uk/view.php...essel=MAHANADA

Do anybody know how to find which aircraft were loaded on which ships ?

Thanks in advance

[G-ASEA]

According to the 'Fairey Battle File' by Sidney Shail they where on board SS Huntigdon.

Dave

[G-ASEA]

Sorry should say SS Huntingdon

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Thanks

SS Huntingdon was sunk on 24 February 1941. By who has been disputed in the past. Seems that the Italian submarine Bianchi is now given as the submarine who sank it, and so no details of Huntingdon is given on uboat.net.