|
Date of Arrival |
Place |
Date of Departure |
Orders, Remarks etc |
|
Early in 1944 HAZARD was
lent to the 46th Escort Group and spent most of the year on escort duties. |
|
10.1.44 |
Bari |
10.1.44 |
|
|
13.1.44 |
Malta |
15.1.44 |
Between 15 January and (?)
February she escorted Convoys UGS28, MKS39 and KMS41. The latter had
been attacked but not harmed by U-boats and aircraft in the Atlantic.
Within the Med at this time, despite the Allied ascendancy, there was
a bitter and difficult campaign in Italy which required a vast
quantity of supplies. |
|
|
We
had to return to Malta and then as escort to a convoy for
Alexandria
and Port Said. We had to go quite a way before we got air escort
from Benghazi which was always welcome to see. They stayed with us
about four hours going around the convoy and then they got relieved
by other fighters and carried on going round and round. When we got
near land we had Spitfires and Hurricanes to guard us past Derna,
the Germans were still in the Island of Crete. We saw none of them
and got to Alex OK. Some ships went in and we escorted the others to
Port Said, and then all the escort came back to Alex. It’s a very
large harbour but small ships went into the inner harbour and
alongside the jetty. And away we went ashore to the canteen and
pictures. There are some very nice ones here. We stayed in Alex
about 10 days and then got ready to take an empty convoy back to
Gibraltar.
Scragg |
|
20.1.44 |
Port Said |
21.1.41 |
|
|
21.1.44 |
Alexandria |
? |
|
|
? |
Port Said |
30.1.44 |
|
|
? |
Alexandria |
31.1.44 |
|
|
4.2.44 |
Malta |
4.2.44 |
|
|
|
We
picked up quite a few ships from Sicily (Augusta) and on the way got
a few from Bone,
Algiers
and Oran. We had one or two scares of sub on the voyage. Any refuse
to be thrown over the side had to be done at a certain time at night
and then the convoy changed its course to hoodwink the subs. We
arrived at Gibraltar and turned the ships over to another lot of
escorts and we went into the dockyard and tied up to await for
orders. We had a nice time going around the Rock and we went to see
a bullfight at La Lenea which is just outside the boundary of
Gibraltar and another day we went up the rock which is very high and
looking from the top the ships looked like toys. There were rock
apes running all around and there was guns sticking out all over the
place. And when we came down we had a look at the inside of the
Rock
Hospital and shelters, everything you could wish for. Out in the
harbour motor boats were going around dropping small charges to stop
frogmen putting limpet mines on the ships’ sides. Well we got orders
to sail with a convoy that was coming in the Straits from the
Atlantic. It was a big one. Plenty of stuff for the Americans on
Sicily who was advancing to the Straits of Messina. And then the
next across to Italy. One or two ships dropped off at
Algiers
and Tunis, some went to Augusta, but we went on to Port Said. And
while we had been away there had been a raid and some ships had been
sunk nearly in the Canal entrance. They tried their hardest to block
the Suez Canal up and that would have been bad. And then we went to
Alexandria to await another convoy.
Scragg |
|
12.2.44 |
Gibraltar |
17.2.44 |
|
|
? |
Bari |
18.2.44 |
|
|
26.2.44 |
Alexandria |
4.3.44 |
|
|
5.3.44 |
Port Said |
5.3.44 |
|
|
Between 6 March and 29
July HAZARD escorted the following convoys within the Med: GUS33,
UGS35, MKS46, KMS48, GUS40, UGS41, MKS52, KMS54, GUS46 and UGS47. |
|
18.3.44 |
Gibraltar |
21.3.44 |
|
|
? |
Alexandria |
27.3.44 |
|
|
30.3.44 |
Alexandria |
8.4.44 |
|
|
9.4.44 |
Port Said |
9.4.44 |
|
|
14.4.44 |
Malta |
15.4.44 |
|
|
? |
Gibraltar |
25.4.44 |
|
|
? |
Bizerta |
27.4.44 |
|
|
4.5.44 |
Alexandria |
15.5.44 |
|
|
21.5.44 |
Bizerta |
24.5.44 |
|
|
30.5.44 |
Port Said |
30.5.44 |
|
|
31.5.44 |
Alexandria |
9.6.44 |
|
|
20.6.44 |
Gibraltar |
23.6.44 |
|
|
2.7.44 |
Alexandria |
15.7.44 |
Convoy GUS46:
HMS Coltsfoot and HMS Hazard joined at Alexandria -
left at Bizerta. |
|
19.7.44 |
Malta |
19.7.44 |
At 09:55B
July 19 a case of suspected Appendicitis was transferred from
William Patterson to HMS Hazard for transport to Malta
Source:
http://www.warsailors.com/convoys/gus46.html |
|
20.7.44 |
Bizerta |
23.7.44 |
|
|
28.7.44 |
Alexandria |
28.7.44 |
|
|
28.7.44 |
Haifa |
30.8.44 |
Refit and repair.
From C in C Med: Hazard
and Sharpshooter are now required for M/S duties with 1st
MSF. Request they be sailed for UK at first opportunity.
|
|
4.8.44 |
Lieut Commander Louis
Conran Smith DSC aged 35 died. Buried
KHAYAT BEACH WAR CEMETERY Israel.
'They also had a Captain Smith on board and in 1944 Hazard was in
Alexander and he went ashore and went for a ride as he had a sports
car. He had an accident and he was killed.'
Source: Sheila Hill |
|
|
Well our
troops were well into
Germany
and the Italians had given in, so we left for Haifa Dockyard to
prepare for our trip home. And while we were there the repairs were
done by German Jews who had escaped and come back home. And while we
were doing the repairs we were sent to a rest camp and it was then
that we heard our captain had been killed in a car crash above
Haifa [4.8.44]. So the Second in Command was ordered to take command of HMS
Hazard. He was a very nice chap Commander Crawford, nephew of the
biscuit people. From the camp a lorry load of us went on three
days leave to the Holy Land.
And when we got back to the ship it was a shambles alright. The
dockyard people at dinner time tried to push you all along the table
and bring their own food with them. They seemed poor kinds of
specimens of Jews from Germany. And all the work that they had done
for me I had to do it all over again. I was splicing wires all day
long until we got back to England.
Scragg |
|
1.9.44 |
Alexandria |
13.9.44 |
HAZARD escorted one more
convoy, GUS52 (Gibraltar to UK, left Alex 13/9 escorted by Coltsfoot,
Hazard, Wolverine and Vetch), between 13 and 19 September, before
sailing for home |
|
17.9.44 |
Malta |
17.9.44 |
|
|
18.9.44 |
Bizerta |
18.9.44 |
|
|
21.9.44 |
Gibraltar |
22.9.44 |
|
|
|
We
called in at Malta and picked up the mail for the UK. What a quiet
trip we had to
Gibraltar with an empty convoy. Had about three days in harbour, got
a few things to bring home. I bought a large stalk of bananas, green
ones, and by the time we got back to
England they would be nice and ripe. We got a few miles out of Gib
and were called back. Our captain being very junior was told we had
to escort an old ship to Falmouth, England. All the other captains
had turned the job down. Instead of taking three days it took us
eleven days, we could of towed her faster. And of course all our
bananas went bad and had to go over the side of the ship. I managed
to save about four for our Sylvia our daughter. And when the weather
got bad the old ship was going backwards not forward. All we could
do was to circle the ship and listen for subs. We must have been
lucky as all those days we never saw a thing.
Scragg |
|
? |
Falmouth |
2.10.44 |
|
|
|
We saw the ship into
Falmouth Harbour and away we went along the Channel and up to
Harwich. The first night in harbour after supper I was walking on
the upper deck when I heard a noise like a fog horn ashore at
Harwich and the lights going. But I saw a light shining in our
captain’s bathroom. I knocked on his door and he wanted to know what
was wrong in the cabin. With him was the Navigator and his wife and
friend, they were Wren officers, and they said it was a doodle bug
coming over. It came very low over the ship, like a small plane with
flames coming out of the back. It sure made an awful noise. They
said when the flames stopped it would dive into the ground and
explode, which it did miles up the river into waste ground. We saw a
few of them while we were at Harwich, also saw a plane of ours run
alongside a doodlebug and tip its wing around and send it back to
Germany or wherever it came from. He was a very famous pilot and he
was stopped going after them.
After a few days rest we were sent
minesweeping. A channel had had been made clear from Margate across
to Ostend, and that was what we had to do, sweep the channel as it
was used to ferry troops and stores to Ostend and the battlefront.
It was then that I saw the big rockets being fired across to hit
London. The next day we were anchored off
Margate
when a storm blew up and all the ships were dropping their anchors
and we had to keep on shifting. I came on watch at midnight and the
captain said the ship’s anchor was not holding and he was scared of
bumping another ship. I asked him when the next tide was and told
him the way all the ships were lying, it would be alright for a few
hours before swinging around again. The captain had had no sleep for
days and now was his chance for a few hours rest. He thanked me for
thinking things out and to call him in his cabin if anything went
wrong. And on his way off the Bridge he aid well John we will be
losing you when we get back to Harwich.
Scragg |
|
3.10.44 |
Harwich |
? |
By 18 October 1944 she
was back with the 1st M/S Flotilla |
|
8.10.44 |
Aberdeen |
12.1.45 |
HAZARD to be taken in
hand, completion 14/12 approx (revised to 9/1) |
