835 Royal Naval Air Squadron Old Comrades Reunion Website

Alone on a Wide Wide Sea

Excerpt from  “Alone on a Wide Wide Sea” by EE Barringer

The story of 835 Naval Air Squadron on board Escort Carrier HMS Nairana,  page 175 / 176 relates to
The loss of SS Henry Bacon from convoy RA 64 from Russia to the UK.

"Three extremely hazardous A/S patrols were flown in high winds and huge seas on 21 February, but conditions were too bad for the U-boats to operate and no contacts were made.

A couple of days later, as we were nearing the Faeroes, we flew our last sortie in defence of RA 64. It was a sad occasion. Several stragglers had not yet managed to catch up with the convoy. Among them was the Henry Bacon, an American “Liberty Ship” which had aboard thirty-five members of the Norwegian Resistance who had been evacuated from Soroya Island to avoid German reprisals. On the afternoon of 23 February a formation of Junkers were searching for the main convoy, but found instead the solitary and seemingly defenceless merchantman.

The Henry Bacon managed to get off a radio message and two of our Wildcats (flown by Armitage and Sargent) were flown off to go to her aid.  However, by the time they found her her decks were awash and the Junkers were on their way back to Trondheim.  The USN Armed Guard who were manning the Henry Bacon upheld the finest traditions of the sea; they gave up their places in the lifeboats to their passengers   

All the Norwegians were saved, but twenty-six of the Armed Guard went down with their ship. Armitage and Sargent circled the sinking ship, watching the survivors take to their boats. There was nothing they could do except take an accurate fix on the lifeboats, circle them and fly low over them to make sure the survivors realized they were not being abandoned, then find their way back to Nairana.
 
The Times Newspaper gave a fairly accurate description of the prevailing weather conditions :
“.....weather of exceptional severity was encountered and in storms with gusts of over 100mph all ships had difficulty keeping their stations. Twice under the stress of weather the convoy became scattered, but each time it was successfully reformed. ....The finest achievement of the whole convoy was the flying of fighters from HMS Nairana when her bows were under huge waves and her screws cleared the water each time she tossed up her stern......”