WW2 Canadian, Australian and New Zealand Transport

[David Dunlop]

With regards to Dutch shipping during WW2, my Mum travelled in a convoy from Liverpool to Algeria aboard the SS Volendam in late 1941 early 1942. She was with the NAAFI at the time.

With regards to the wartime CMP activity across the Pacific, firstly, 'Holden' is associated with General Motors in Australia. Where were Ford's operations based? Also, did most sea traffic arrive at one particular port, or was it spread around as much as possible? I seem to remember reading about a large military base somewhere on the West Coast of Australia where a number of CMP vehicles were abandoned after the war. Not sure I ever heard why.

David

[Keith Webb]

Ford were based (and still are there) in Geelong which is a port city not far from Melbourne. The main General Motors Holden factory was at Fishermens Bend which is adjacent to Melbourne. GM-H assembled CMPs in most Australian capital cities. They also had greater body building facilities and were responsible for most of the locally built GS bodies as well as a lot of the specialised bodies on CMPs here.
Ford did build some of the specialised bodies for their own chassis such as No8 and 9 gun tractors, while GM-H also built their own version, which may seem strange for small production runs but they had integral cabs which had different floors.

Originally Posted by David Dunlop

With regards to Dutch shipping during WW2, my Mum travelled in a convoy from Liverpool to Algeria aboard the SS Volendam in late 1941 early 1942. She was with the NAAFI at the time.

With regards to the wartime CMP activity across the Pacific, firstly, 'Holden' is associated with General Motors in Australia. Where were Ford's operations based? Also, did most sea traffic arrive at one particular port, or was it spread around as much as possible? I seem to remember reading about a large military base somewhere on the West Coast of Australia where a number of CMP vehicles were abandoned after the war. Not sure I ever heard why.

David

[Mike Cecil]

Regarding the proportion of the world's Merchant Fleet operated by each country at the outbreak of war in 1939, I had a quick look at Roger Jordan's excellent reference "The Worlds Merchant Fleets 1939", and the relative proportions of pages devoted to each country is interesting. The pages are all formatted the same way, so the numbers of ships in each country's fleet is very, very roughly proportional to the number of pages in the book devoted to each country.

Denmark: 12 pages
Finland: 8 pages
GB & Dominions: 119 pages (!) (Unfortunately, the countries are all mixed in alpha order of the shipping company name, so impossible to easily differentiate by each Empire country)
Greece: 22 pages
Norway: 50 pages
Netherlands: 21 pages
USA: 55 pages

By contrast, The main Axis countries:

Germany: 32 pages
Japan: 21 pages
Italy: 22 pages


Mike C

[Mike Cecil]

Hi David,

""With regards to Dutch shipping during WW2, my Mum travelled in a convoy from Liverpool to Algeria aboard the SS Volendam in late 1941 early 1942. She was with the NAAFI at the time.""

Algeria was Vichy French, I think, and was not invaded until the Op Torch landings in November 1942?

If she travelled in the SS Volendam in early 1942, maybe she was headed to Suez on convoy WS16, via Freetown and Cape Town?

Mike C

[David Dunlop]

Thanks for the info. Mum's just turned 90 in March and her memory is not as sharp as it used to be and sadly, her NAAFI Records were lost in a fire in London in the 1950's.

I do know she met my Dad while in Algeria. The Camp the NAAFI were in was called Camp Sircouf (don't quote my spelling), on the coast, just East of Algiers. By that time, my Dad was a Staff Sgt with the QOCHofC and was on assignment with some sort of team from the Canadian Army that had gone to Algeria to study the possibility of setting up a Canadian Military Hospital somewhere there. Don't know whatever came of that project. Dad was there at least long enough to qualify for the North Africa Star. Have no idea how long that would have meant he stayed.

Have some photos of Mum's from there. She met quite a few Australian and New Zealand Troops while there and apparently had an Italian POW working in the camp as a cook. He was a baker before the war and taught Mum Italian. Sorry for the side bar!

David

[Mike Cecil]

David,

Do your Dad's records still exist? Maybe we can narrow down a time line by his arrival/departure from Algeria? Worth a thought.

The ship was well-used throughout the war for trooping: returned to the Netherlands post-war. Broken up in the 1950s.

Mike C

[David Dunlop]

I will see what I can find in my Dad's files and revisit the NAAFI with Mum and pick this up in the YOUR RELATIVES Thread.

Thanks, Mike


David

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by David Dunlop

Dad was there at least long enough to qualify for the North Africa Star. Have no idea how long that would have meant he stayed.

Qualification for campaign medals was one day's operational service in the prescribed area during the prescribed period.

Until recently I could never figure out how a France and Germany Star came to be amongst my father's war service medals. Turns out he was posted to 451 Sqn RAAF who were reforming in Marseille between campaigns. He travelled up there from Italy but there'd been a stuff up so they sent him back three days later. Mystery solved!

[Bob McNeill]

Tony strange that you mention it because dads unit 2/9th Field Reg arrived in Egypt and picked up 2/2 Field Reg 25Prs, when the officers arrived the unit moved out headed to Syria as support for the British Forces. The ordinary ranks got their medals and the officers missed out.

[Lang]

Only slightly of interest but related to Mike's notes on the Australian Government "borrowing" ships.

When I was about 7 we travelled between Melbourne and Sydney on the "Manunda". Probably a Burns Philp ship. The highlight of my limited memory of the trip was a tour conducted by a crew member to inspect the huge welding repairs from the bombs she received as a hospital ship in Darwin Harbour 19 Feb 42

Lang