Convoys

[news]

I've never seen what, if any, cargo those merchant ships carried back to
the US, Canada or wherever they originated from after they unloaded in
Britian

[Michael Emrys]

Post by news
I've never seen what, if any, cargo those merchant ships carried back to
the US, Canada or wherever they originated from after they unloaded in
Britian

I think there were some manufactured trade goods, but I don't have a
list and my suspicion is that a lot of the returning ships traveled
light. One exception being ships carrying POWs to Canada or the US.

Churchill in his memoir mentions that he ordered that any ships
returning from India or Ceylon should carry as much tea as they could. I
found that mildly amusing.

Michael

[Bill]

Post by Michael Emrys

Post by news
I've never seen what, if any, cargo those merchant ships carried back to
the US, Canada or wherever they originated from after they unloaded in
Britian

I think there were some manufactured trade goods, but I don't have a
list and my suspicion is that a lot of the returning ships traveled
light. One exception being ships carrying POWs to Canada or the US.
Churchill in his memoir mentions that he ordered that any ships
returning from India or Ceylon should carry as much tea as they could. I
found that mildly amusing.

The British government undertook to purchase the whole world
production of tea for the duration of WWII.

In those days the UK was pretty much tea fueled.

[Don Phillipson]

Post by news
I've never seen what, if any, cargo those merchant ships carried back to
the US, Canada or wherever they originated from after they unloaded in
Britian

Not much, because Britain was not exporting much after 1940 -- only
such exceptionally high-value as Scotch whisky, cf.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisky_Galore_%28novel%29
Returning freighters in ballast also carried occasional passengers
and one-off shipments, e.g. German aircraft for examination in
N.America, early British jet engines for testing etc. It was a
small convenience that returning empty freighters could steam
a little faster than when loaded: but many tramp steamers of
the 1930s could not make more than 12 knots.

[Paul F Austin]

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I've never seen what, if any, cargo those merchant ships carried back to
the US, Canada or wherever they originated from after they unloaded in
Britian

We own a small teapot marked "For England and Democracy" that was
imported during the Battle of the Atlantic.
Paul

[Errolwi]

Post by news
I've never seen what, if any, cargo those merchant ships carried back to
the US, Canada or wherever they originated from after they unloaded in
Britian

Loading ships is time-consuming, and port capacity was limited, so it would of had to have been really worth it to load the ships.

--
Errol Cavit

[Paul F Austin]

Post by Errolwi

Post by news
I've never seen what, if any, cargo those merchant ships carried back to
the US, Canada or wherever they originated from after they unloaded in
Britian

Loading ships is time-consuming, and port capacity was limited, so it would of had to have been really worth it to load the ships.

In an environment that allowed individual ships to sail, that would be
the case. When a convoy has to be assembled and most importantly, the
convoy escorts detached from their current duties, reassigned and join
up, there are many delays between arrival of an inbound convoy and the
sailing of the outbound one. In the mean time some goods can and were
loaded. The bottle-neck there was the production of export goods using
labor not needed for defense work and materials not needed as well, both
in short supply. Long-shore labor was a constraint as well.

Paul

[Andrew Chaplin]

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I've never seen what, if any, cargo those merchant ships carried back to
the US, Canada or wherever they originated from after they unloaded in
Britian

As I understand it, some sub-assemblies and instruments were shipped from
the U.K. to Canada for aircraft production. (These would not have taken up a
lot of shipping, that's for sure.)