In early September 1941, the White House received a request for help: Could the United States transport British troops to the Middle East, where they were desperately needed? Two months later, when six American troopships loaded with the British soldiers and under U.S. Navy escort sailed from Halifax, Nova Scotia, the dangers they faced were known. At least five large, long-ranging U-boats were close enough to the convoy’s route to present a danger, and scattered German armed merchant cruisers were operating in the South Atlantic. Nevertheless, there was confidence in Washington and at sea that the risks could be contained. But what the convoy’s commanders could not have known was that before their voyage was over the troopships would face a new enemy and dangers far greater than those posed by the Germans in the Atlantic.
By the middle of 1941, Great Britain had been at war for almost two years. For the second of those, the British had carried on the fight against Germany and Italy alone. Pushed off the European continent by crushing defeats in France and Greece, they fought on in the Atlantic and in North Africa. But neither campaign was going well. In September, U-boats sank 57 merchantmen carrying vital supplies to Britain while losing only two of their number. The situation in North Africa was even worse. German Führer Adolf Hitler responded to British forces routing the Italians in Libya by sending in several divisions and one of his ablest generals, Erwin Rommel. By the autumn of 1941, the British had fallen back beyond the Egyptian border. Neither campaign was one they could afford to lose.
By late-summer 1941, it was obvious that Britain’s main force in North Africa, the 8th Army, desperately needed reinforcements. Prime Minister Winston Churchill had troops ready to be sent from Great Britain, but no timely way to get them there. At the beginning of September, he turned to America for help, writing President Franklin D. Roosevelt:
I wish to reinforce the Middle East armies with two regular British divisions, 40,000 men. . . . We can not, however, manage to find the whole of the shipping by ourselves. Would it be possible for you to lend us twelve United States liners and twenty United States cargo ships manned by American crews from early October till February?
This was an extraordinary request between nations, even ones as united in purpose as Britain and America. In addition, Roosevelt had to worry about the domestic political reaction to such a move, given that the United States was not officially at war, and the effect the absence of the ships might have on American military preparedness. Nevertheless, the president replied four days later that “I am sure we can help with your project to reinforce the Middle East Army.” Roosevelt went on to make a counteroffer: “I can now assure you that we can provide transports for 20,000 men. These ships will be United States Navy transports manned by Navy crews. Our Neutrality Act permits public ships of the Navy to go to any port. I am loaning to you our best transport ships.”
In fact, Roosevelt, ever the consummate politician, uncharacteristically had responded too quickly, without fully considering the potential political risks. He came to understand that should one of the ships be lost the popular reaction in the United States would be overwhelmingly negative. On 7 October, he raised the issue again in a note to Churchill:
At this very late date I deeply regret necessity of reopening with you what had been agreed on. . . . I have given careful study to other means of accomplishing the same ultimate objective.
As a first alternative, I suggest you send here, or transfer from your ships under repair here, enough officers and men to man our six transports. . . . The ships would then sail from Canadian ports under British Flag and with British crews under Lend-Lease arrangements.
The second alternative would be for U.S. to continue manning these six transports, send them to Halifax, you to send the troops to board transports in Halifax. We would then transport the whole outfit through Western Hemisphere waters and thence to Near East destination. . . . We could escort this fast convoy all the way.
Roosevelt made clear that he favored the first option, but the British strongly preferred the second, as it put less strain on their limited resources of ships and crews. Churchill replied, “If you agree our experts can make firm programme whereby nine British liners arrive at Halifax with 20,800 men comprising the eighteenth division and start transhipment to your transports on November 7.” Thus was set in motion one of the most curious and complicated voyages in U.S. Navy history.
First Leg of the Trip
The operation officially started on 26 September, when Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Harold R. Stark ordered the six ships of his two newest transport divisions to prepare for six months at sea. These were all former ocean liners or cruise ships, so they were built to carry large numbers of passengers on extended voyages. However, all were new to naval service, having only been commissioned in June.
Three of them were large passenger liners acquired directly by the Navy—the USS Wakefield (AP-21), Mount Vernon (AP-22), and West Point (AP-23)—formerly in United States Lines service. The government originally had acquired the other three—the USS Orizaba (AP-24), Leonard Wood (AP-25), and Joseph T. Dickman (AP-26)—for the Army Transport Service, but they were transferred to the Navy during the first ten days of June. While the Wakefield was manned by Coast Guardsmen, U.S. Navy crewmen and officers served on board the other five vessels.
Stark’s orders specified that the ships were to arrive at Halifax no later than 6 November, ready to take aboard their charges. The British Army’s 18th Division embarked on eight Royal Navy troopships in a convoy designated CT-5 that departed Scotland’s Firth of Clyde on 30 October. On 25 October, Rear Admiral Henry K. Hewitt’s Task Force (TF) 14, comprising the Yorktown (CV-5), New Mexico (BB-42), two light cruisers, and nine destroyers, had departed Portland, Maine, joining an eastbound fast convoy of Lend-Lease merchantmen codenamed Tango. The two convoys met south of Iceland on 2 November and exchanged escort groups, TF 14 now covering CT-5 as it continued toward Halifax. The troopships arrived safely on 7 November, and the process of transferring the British soldiers to the American APs began the next day.
The legal niceties of transporting troops of a belligerent country in naval ships of another power that was still technically neutral took some working out. It was finally agreed to record the soldiers as excess crewmen and to pay for their board out of Lend-Lease funds. U.S. Navy regulations were thus to be applied to the soldiers. That mainly meant that there would be no alcohol on board, a cause of considerable complaint among the British.
Atlantic Crossing
By 0830 on 10 November, the six troopships were clear of Halifax Harbor and heading just east of south under the convoy designation WS (Winston Special) 12X. Initially, its escort was a single Canadian destroyer, but at 1335, Rear Admiral Arthur Cook’s Task Group 14.4—the USS Ranger (CV-4), Quincy (CA-39), Vincennes (CA-44), and DesRon 8—met the convoy. Its ultimate destination was Basra, at the head of the Persian Gulf, with stops at Trinidad and Simon’s Town, South Africa.
The plan had been for WS-12X to proceed at 15 knots, but that soon proved impossible to maintain; the Leonard Wood was having problems with her boilers’ blowers. That and the zigzagging pattern the convoy followed during daylight meant that its speed rarely exceeded 12 knots.
Despite the problems, the ships arrived at Trinidad in seven days and departed again on the 19th with the oiler Cimarron (AO-22) in company for the long leg to the Cape of Good Hope. Rather than slow the convoy for the run through the known U-boat hunting grounds in the South Atlantic, the Leonard Wood was detached and instructed to proceed independently with a single destroyer as escort. However, the Wood’s engineers were able to rig auxiliary blowers, and she would rejoin the convoy on 27 November.
On 26 November, the CNO directed that the Ranger, two destroyers, and the Cimarron be detached for return to the North Atlantic. Further, the convoy was to split into two groups, the three faster liners forming a 20-knot detachment. Cook objected to this plan on two grounds. First, even if the Cimarron refueled the destroyers and the short-legged Orizaba before departing, those ships would be able to reach Simon’s Town only at the most economical speed, with no reserve. Second, splitting the convoy would weaken the escort for each of the halves to an unacceptable level. Cook’s arguments were accepted. Revised orders the next day instructed the convoy to continue as one unit and the Cimarron to remain with the group. At a point west of St. Helena, the Ranger, Trippe (DD-403), and Rhind (DD-404) turned north. Air cover for the remaining voyage to the Cape would be provided by the cruisers’ floatplanes.
On board the transports, there was a steady stream of complaints from the troops about overcrowding, poor ventilation, and water rationing. On the other hand, the food was universally praised, in particular the Thanksgiving turkeys. Ahead of the convoy on 1 December, the heavy cruiser HMS Dorsetshire, alerted by decrypted German radio intercepts, surprised and sank the Kriegsmarine oiler Python while she was refueling two U-boats. In the event, WS-12X was not sighted by any Germans. Although escorts reported numerous U-boat sightings, all proved to be false.
The relatively peaceful passage was disturbed at the beginning of December by foul weather that worsened throughout the day on the 6th, building into a southeast gale that reduced progress to a crawl. Almost all the escorts sustained some degree of damage, and one of the Vincennes’ floatplanes was destroyed. Far more disturbing was the news that arrived late the next day of Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor and British possessions in the Pacific.
New Enemy, New Destinations
As shocking as it must have been for the convoy’s U.S. sailors and Coast Guardsmen, as well as the British troops, the news resulted in no noticeable difference in the ships’ routine. They proceeded the last miles to the Cape of Good Hope and into False Bay, arriving at Simon’s Town on 9 December. There, responsibility for protection of the convoy was transferred to the Royal Navy. After news arrived the next day of the sinking of the British battleship Prince of Wales and battlecruiser Repulse by Japanese bombers and torpedo planes, the convoy’s departure was expedited.
Just before sailing on the 13th, word was passed that the convoy’s destination was now Bombay (present-day Mumbai). The Dorsetshire and six U.S. Navy destroyers would provide escort. The Vincennes, Quincy, and Cimarron remained at Simon’s Town awaiting the formation of a northwest-bound convoy. The destroyers remained with the convoy only until the next day, leaving the APs escorted by the single cruiser. The convoy’s senior U.S. Navy officer present, Captain Donald Beary in the Mount Vernon, protested to both navy commands that providing so small an escort for six troopships carrying more than 20,000 men was reckless. Both sent their regrets, but said no more warships were available; the vessels would have to proceed without additional escort.
The convoy made its way along the east coast of Africa through the Mozambique Channel. Zigzagging and sailing at an economical speed to preserve fuel, it stayed together without incident until 21 December. Once north of Madagascar, the ships were met by the light cruiser HMS Ceres with instructions to escort the Orizaba to Mombasa, Kenya. The departure of the slowest of the troopships allowed the convoy’s speed to be increased to 15 knots. Later in the day, orders arrived instructing the Mount Vernon also to divert to Mombasa. Sailing alone at 21 knots, she arrived safely on Christmas Day. The four remaining troopships, which continued on toward Bombay, were now under the command of Captain Frank H. Kelley Jr. in the West Point.
The story of what had been WS-12X then became more complicated, with multiple simultaneous threads. Neither the Mount Vernon nor the Orizaba unloaded troops or equipment at Mombasa. This change in plans was caused by news from Malaya, where Japanese forces threatened the vital stronghold of Singapore, which now needed reinforcements more desperately than Egypt. Thus, on 29 December, the Mount Vernon, escorted by the light cruiser HMS Emerald, left Mombasa to join convoy DM-1 headed for Singapore.
Meanwhile, the remaining troopships continued toward Bombay. On 27 December, as the convoy neared its destination, the two faster troopships, the Wakefield and West Point, were instructed to proceed at best speed while the remaining ships continued at 15 knots. Arriving in port the same day, the Wakefield immediately moored and began unloading. The West Point and the two slower troopships, which arrived the next day, waited their turn. The entire unloading process was completed on 2 January 1942. The Orizaba, which had departed Mombasa some time after the Mount Vernon, made the passage to Bombay without escort or incident. She arrived on 6 January and completed unloading the same day.
The Mount Vernon and Emerald had joined up with convoy DM-1 on 30 December and proceeded to Addu Atoll in the Maldives, off the tip of India, to meet the heavy cruiser HMS Exeter (of the Battle of the River Plate fame) and light cruiser HMS Durban. Because the Japanese already controlled the Strait of Malacca, the most direct route to Singapore, the convoy instead headed for the Sunda Strait, between Java and Sumatra, which they cleared on 10 January. Approached by Japanese aircraft 12 January, the ships encountered a large rain squall that hid them from sight. Without further adventure, DM-1 arrived at Singapore the next morning.
As the Mount Vernon was being unloaded, several air raids caused operations to cease and antiaircraft guns to be manned. During one raid on 14 January, a bomb landed on the dock, no more than 15 feet from the troopship. Nevertheless, by midday, her British passengers—5,103 officers and men—and all their equipment had been disembarked. At 1500 that day, she departed Singapore, escorted by the destroyer HMS Jupiter and Royal Indian Navy sloop Jumna, beginning a high-speed run toward Sunda Strait. Three days later, she had cleared the strait and was en route to Aden, the British colony near the entrance to the Red Sea.
Two Troopships’ Singapore Run
At Bombay, the local British command informed Captain Kelley that the three older, smaller U.S. troopships were no longer needed. When he requested escort for these vessels, he was told that shipping west of Bombay was not escorted. On 10 January, the Leonard Wood, Joseph T. Dickman, and Orizaba departed Bombay, arriving safely on the U.S. East Coast at the end of February. The two remaining fast troopships, however, were not released. Under orders from the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, the Wakefield and West Point were placed at the disposal of the Royal Navy for “one trip to India, Middle East or Malaya.”
When asked if the ships could be reduced in draft to a maximum of 30 feet, Captain Kelley replied that it was possible, but at the cost of some stability. The draft reduction was necessary because it was feared that lack of time and suitable shipping might require the vessels to continue straight on to Singapore through the treacherous Banka and Berhala straits off the north coast of Sumatra. Kelley reported that “The channels in these straits are punctuated by shallow areas which are unmarked and considerable current may be expected. Except on an urgent mission in time of war I would not consider taking the WEST POINT and WAKEFIELD through these waters.”
Starting on 16 January, the Wakefield and West Point were reloaded—most of the troops that embarked being the same ones they had brought from Halifax—and on the 19th departed Bombay for Singapore along with three Royal Navy troopships and the cruiser HMS Caledon. The U.S. ships were capable of a sustained speed of at least 20 knots, but one of the British transports could manage a maximum of 16 knots, so the convoy proceeded south from Bombay at a slower speed. As they approached the western entrance of the Sunda Strait eight days later, the escort was gradually increased to include three more cruisers and three destroyers.
The convoy cleared the strait on 27 January and immediately turned north toward Singapore, following a circuitous route that stayed close to the shore of Sumatra. Arriving at the southern entrance of the Banka Strait at dawn on the 28th, the convoy waited only briefly for a pilot before deciding to continue. They proceeded in single file, led by the Exeter, followed by the West Point and then alternating escort and troopship, ending with the last of the escorts. While in this formation the Americans on board the Wakefield and West Point first caught a glimpse of their new enemy. According to Kelley: “At 1152 while in a narrow part of the channel, a single Japanese reconnaissance bomber passed over the convoy from west to east at an altitude of 6,000 to 8,000 feet and dropped a string of bombs that straddled the ships at the rear of the column.”
At the northern end of the strait, the convoy split, so that the faster ships could reach Singapore at dawn the next day, the 29th. The Wakefield, West Point, and the fastest of the British troopships, ironically named the Empress of Japan, proceeded at 20 knots through the Berhala Strait and the Phillips Channel. Despite their effort, they were forced to wait an hour at Singapore for pilots to arrive. Because the naval base on the north side of the island had been too badly damaged by bombs to accommodate the ships, they had to dock at Keppel Harbor, the commercial port, on the south side of Singapore. The two American APs were tied up by 0830, and their precious cargo of reinforcements began disembarking 40 minutes later. All told, the three U.S. Navy troopships that reached Singapore brought more than 14,800 British soldiers, though all did not disembark. Sadly, the arrivals who came ashore and survived the fighting for Singapore became Japanese prisoners of war when the island surrendered barely two weeks later.
‘Bombs Began Falling’
Repeated air raids were a serious problem on the 29th. Each of the five Japanese attacks between 1000 and 2200 targeted the naval base area, but they nevertheless disrupted the unloading process at Keppel Harbor. Captain Kelley reported, “As at each alert the coolies stopped work and took to shelters, practically all the work of unloading the ships had to be done by our crews and troop working parties.”
Nevertheless, unloading was completed by dawn on the 30th, but the two APs were not cleared to leave. Kelley was informed that his next task was to sail to Suez to pick up additional troops and that, before they left, the ships would embark more than 1,500 civilian evacuees and military personnel to be carried to Colombo, Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka). They would pay a price for the delay.
Kelley, on board the West Point, reported that at about 0940 seven Japanese bombers were sighted over Singapore. Several Royal Air Force Brewster Buffalo fighters scrambled to intercept the enemy aircraft and remained aloft until landing at 1050. Ten minutes later more Japanese planes were spotted overhead, “at least thirty bombers,” according to Kelley. The Wakefield’s skipper, Coast Guard Commander William Scammell, reported that “two formations of twenty-seven planes each were spotted approaching dock area in Keppel Harbor . . . immediately thereafter bombs began falling.”
After two near misses dropped within 50 yards and 40 feet of the Wakefield, the troopship sustained a direct hit at 1105. What Scammell estimated was a 250-pound armor-piercing bomb penetrated the ship’s forward B deck and exploded in the sick bay on C deck. Five men were killed and nine injured, but damage to the ship was not serious and fires were brought under control by about 1125. Meanwhile, the last of the bombs straddled the West Point but inflicted no damage.
Evacuees began boarding the troopships at 1300. More than 1,200 men, women, and children, most with only hand baggage, embarked in the West Point. Also on board were 651 British Army engineers, as well as their considerable equipment, who had embarked in Bombay and not left the ship. The Wakefield took aboard 341 RAF and army personnel and civilians, 300 of whom were women or children.
Long Journey Home
The two APs cleared the harbor at 1800 the same day, and four hours later the Wakefield’s dead were buried at sea. Escorted by the Durban, the troopships safely cleared Bangka Strait during the evening on the 31st. At that point, they received instructions to head for Batavia (present-day Jakarta), Java. Twenty-five of the refugees disembarked there, and two new ones boarded during the morning of 1 February. Shortly thereafter the West Point and Wakefield again set out. Their three-warship escort detached at Sunda Strait, where it was to join an inbound convoy, and the two American troopships continued without escort to Ceylon, arriving without incident at Colombo on 6 February.
There, almost all the refugees disembarked. Local authorities claimed they could provide neither repairs for the Wakefield nor provisions sufficient to permit the ships to reach Suez. Instead, they were ordered to continue on to Bombay with some 140 new passengers, arriving there on 10 February.
The long journey of the three U.S. Navy troopships remaining from WS-12X was entering its last stages. The Mount Vernon picked up a full load of Australian troops at Aden and set off for the southwestern Australian port of Fremantle. Unloading her passengers there, she continued eastward to Adelaide, where survivors of the fall of the Philippines were taken aboard. After one additional stop at Wellington, New Zealand, the Mount Vernon arrived at San Francisco on 31 March. Meanwhile, temporary repairs were made to the Wakefield at Bombay, after which she took aboard 336 American evacuees and departed for New York, arriving on 23 March.
The last of the six to return to a U.S. harbor was the West Point. Replenishing at Bombay, she departed on 16 February for Suez, at the head of the Red Sea, where she picked up 5,353 Australian soldiers for transport to Adelaide and Melbourne. After delivering them, she set out for San Francisco, where she arrived on 24 April 1942, almost exactly six months after leaving Norfolk. The West Point had steamed a phenomenal distance. She had left a nation at peace, albeit one inching toward involvement in a war in Europe. The troopship returned to a nation united by a fierce determination to fight and win a war across two oceans.
Convoy—William Sail 12X, www.britain-at-war.org.uk/WW2/Convoy_William_Sail_12x/.
Convoy CT.5, www.britain-at-war.org.uk/WW2/Convoy_William_Sail_12x/html/clyde_to_halifax.htm.
Correspondence: Winston S. Churchill to Franklin D. Roosevelt, No. 4014, 1 September 1941; FDR to WSC, unnumbered, 5 September 1941; FDR to WSC, unnumbered, draft, 7 October, 1941; WSC to FDR, No. 4801, 9 October 1941, Map Room File, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, New York.
Samuel Eliot Morison, The Battle of the Atlantic, vol. 1 of History of United States Naval Operations in World War II (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1955).
USS Wakefield, Action Report, 20 March 1942, “War Damage Report, 30 January 1942—Forwards report of damage sustained as a result of a direct bomb hit during Japanese air attack on Singapore at 2205 on 30 January 1942,” Record Group 38, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland (hereafter cited as NARA).
USS West Point, Action Report, 10 January 1942, “Voyage Report—Report of transport of British forces to Bombay and of circumstances which held the ship at that port after personnel had been unloaded,” Record Group 38, NARA.
USS West Point, Action Report, 15 February 1942, “Voyage Report—Report of transfer of reinforcements for British forces at Singapore from Bombay and evacuation of non-essential civilians to Bombay on return trip,” Record Group 38, NARA.