SS Greenland

For Stevin and others who were interested in researching this sinking, I managed to get the following info.:


SS Greenland, struck mine on 6th December 1941 at 52 degrees 14' N, 01 degree 56 ' E. Ship reported as sinking at 52 degrees 14'N, 02 degrees 06'E.
This position is ROUGHLY South-East of the Isle of Wight.
Ship described as a steamship of 1,281 gross tonnage.


SOURCE

British Vessels Lost At Sea 1939-45.(2nd Ed.)
(Cambridge. Patrick Stephens Ltd. 1983)p29.

Regards,
Gordon

[ 15. January 2004, 04:06 PM: Message edited by: The_Historian ]

 

Thanks VERY MUCH, Gordon!

This is very much appreciated. Another piece of the puzzle. Also thanks for the post in the other thread! It is very much appreciated.

Stevin

 

my pleasure!

Regards,
Gordon

 

Gordon, I took out my map today and according to this map, the location of the Greenland sinking is just off the coast of Harwich/Felixstowe. Not Isle of Wight. Is my simple schoolmap the correct tool in this???

Also just came across a pratically similar case with a HM Trawler sinking off the coast of DEAL (north of Dover) and a seaman from that ship being buried in Rozenburg, Holland.

 

Stevin,
Every chance of YOUR calculation being right, rather than mine! I used an old stencil of the British Isles from my school days, and it only roughly had Latitude and Longitude on it.
I'm still trying to get a hold of Admiralty maps of the British coastline; well, I know where to buy them, it's the cash!
Any news of Wayman, etc? With a bit of luck, I might manage to get to Edinburgh and do some research in a few weeks time when term ends.

Regards,
Gordon

 

No, unfortunately not. Nothing in the way of personal information. I did put him on-line though ( www.basher82.nl ).

I also called some Burt's but no-one knew who I was talking about. Still a few to go, but I am concentrating now on finding relatives of the crew of the MAN-O-WAR, a 91st BG B17 that was shot down on July 30, 1943 and crashed near Opijnen, Holland. 8 of the crew is still buried there! The local community is honoring the crew by naming 8 streets in a new building project after the eight men. The streets will be inaugurated on May 4, Holland's Day of Rememberance. The only surviving crewmember, co-pilot John Bruce will attend the ceremony!!

The graves have been more or less adopted by the American Women's Club of Amsterdam. They have done a TERRIFIC job in honoring the rememberance of these men. May 4th will be a great day. The story is also on the basher82 site. I am now trying to get in touch with any relatives of the perished crew. Takes a lot of phonecalls!

thanks again, Gordon!

[ 02. March 2004, 02:41 PM: Message edited by: Stevin Oudshoorn ]

 

Stevin,
That's a good site, you've obviously put a lot of work into it. Good to hear the Man O' War crew are getting the recognition they deserve.
I'll keep my eye on the site and see if I can turn up anything else for you in future.

Regards,
Gordon

 

Stevin,
Apologies, I've never managed to get through to Edinburgh yet. I will do though, at some point.
Any news?

Regards,
Gordon

 

Hello Gordon,

No problem! Whatever info might come in is more than welcome, but don't consider this a 'must-do' now.

I haven't found anything new on Wayman (or Burt). I have no idea where he was from, so can't call people with the same name in the same city/town out of the blue and ask "Do They Know Able Seaman Wayman"? Have to go and check the Navy archives when I have the time/money. I finished calling all the Burts, but to no avail. No succes either on the MANO-O-WAR familymembers.

I did, however, got the name and email address of another local researcher, who apparently (also)researches all the wargraves in Amsterdam. Hope to hear from him soon, and maybe we can exchange info.

In the meantime I have been gathering a rather large amount of info on Allied soldiers in Holland. Loads of starting points for further research as most are just name, unit and a small bits and pieces of info.

I will let you know when I get more info on either of these gents in!

Thanks for the continuing interest, Gordon!

Stevin

 

Stevin,
No problems. Hope your research bears fruit!

Regards,
Gordon

 

Thanks to a fellow Dutch researcher I found out that Leading Airman Burt's pilot, Sub Lt. Kiddell, actually died as a POW in 1943. I was led to believe he survived the war and returned to England.

Actually he was promoted to Lt.(A) on 28 November 1941 (while a POW). He died on july 1, 1943 (to the day three years after he was shot down over Schiphol airfield). He is buried at Poznan Old Garrison cemetery.

[ 14. April 2004, 03:23 PM: Message edited by: Stevin Oudshoorn ]

 

Good work Stevin!
Another piece of the jigsaw in place.......


Regards,

Gordon

 

Gordon have you been able to plot the Ss Greenlands sinking on the KM grid maps yet ? The sinking may have been the result from a KM Mine ship. I have a great book "Minen-Schiffe 1939-45" by v. Kutzleben, Schroeder und Brennecke; c 1974 and thanks to Stevin for this.


In it there are some mine maps via the ships logs, so a slight chance we could delve as to whom may have dropped off the lethal dose....

E

 

Erich,
No, I haven't had time to really sit down and plot anything. Plus, the info on how to use the KM maps won't download to my pc, unzipped or not.
Got a rough idea of the Greenland's position, and I'm looking at marine navigation software to try and plot all my own wreck data onto.
You ever used Digiwave maps, or any other software? I think Admiralty Raster maps would be favourite, but not before I win the lottery!
If you can plot the position on the minelayer maps, it would give me a head start at least.

Regards,
Gordon

 

All I could plot, using my atlas and the KM ref site, is that it must have been 'somewhere' in grid AN79. SSGreenland struck a mine and sank just off the coast of Harwich/Felixstowe, according to my calculations.

Gordon, are you also plotting the wreck sites of MTB's in the North Sea? (what is your area of interest? 'Just' Scotland?)

I have some (scant) info on several MTB's that were sunk and which (whose?) crewmembers are buried in Holland.

You might already know this site, but this will definately of interest: http://www.naval-history.net/NAVAL1939-45RNLoss.htm

 

Stevin,
Ta for the site. Hadn't seen it before, but it's along the same lines as my own research.
Yes, I'm only doing Scotland for the simple reason of logistics. I have about a 20 page list of completed data for losses in the Great War, and another 60 of RAW data for WW2 I haven't even had a chance to look at yet!
I include non-Admiralty vessels, because I think you can only get a true picture of the losses if you compare them to groundings, founderings, collisions etc, so there are a lot of ships which didn't sink from enemy action that are normally excluded.I also have a few vessels which sank in inland waterways, just to make it even more like Sysiphus pushing that bloody boulder up that hill......
As far as details go, I normally include name, date sunk, registered port, destination port, date built/completed, type, construction (wood, Iron or steel), cargo, crew, tonnage, dimensions, location of loss and reason for it, and whether the vessel was eventually salvaged.
I've also got monthly lists of losses, with a snapshot of the above details to keep it simple(ish).
You might find the following books useful:
Shipwreck index of the British Isles, by Larn and Larn. This is published in several volumes, each devoted to a different area of Britain, and covers everything from Mediaeval times. The National Monuments Record for Scotland uses the Scottish volume as a guide to further reading on each wreck.
The Admiralty Regrets: British Warship Losses of the 20th century.
You may already have seen them, of course, but if not I highly recommend them.

Regards,
Gordon

 

will have to take Stevins co-ordinates into consideration and do a little frei-jagd on this. all minen-boots are covered but not all show mine patterns they have laid during the war within the scope of the work I mentioned.

interesting research gents !

E

 

Gents,
I was in my local bookshop the other day and picked up a bargain for £1.
Basically, it's a handbook for yachtsmen on how to calculate magnetic deviation. Could be used to pinpoint wreck positions from those recorded at the time too, of course. As long as you have a roomful of computers to do all the maths involved ......

Regards,

Gordon

 

Or you get a 1 GBP book...right???

 

well.....in theory anyway.

Regards,

Gordon