Links etc

Links

There are some excellent sites on the web which detail the largely unrealised and unrecognised part the Merchant Seamen played in World War II. There are other sites which give advice and information on researching seafaring ancestors and ships. Below is my list of recommended web sites:

Sites with particular reference to 'Fort', 'Park' or 'Ocean' Ships

	Allied Merchant Seamen of WW2 - Includes an interesting article on the Fort Crevier and the Fort Stikine disaster.
	British and Canadian Merchant Navy 1936-1946 - Leslie H Russell's website detailing the ships he sailed on including 'Fort Frobisher'.
	Dams, Bridges and Ships - Richard Brown's tribute to his father which includes Launch photographs of 30 'Ocean' ships built in Richmond.
	Fort La Baye 1943-1956 - Part of the 'Ships of Long Ago' website
	Merchant Ships of Long Ago - Includes information on Fort La Baye
	Tees Ships - An article by James Layton gives background information on the 'Fort' ships and describes the fate of the Fort Massac.
	Withrow Park - Part of the 'Ships of Long Ago' website

Shipbuilding

	When Women Went to War - Article on the women who worked at Burrard Dry Dock during WW2
	West Coast Shipbuilding - a Canadian SchoolNet Project website. Information and photographs on Burrard Dry Dock where many of the 'Forts and 'Parks' were built.
	South Portland Shipyards of WW2 - a site dedicated to the workers of the shipyards and the ships they built. Thirty 'Oceans' were built at the The Todd-Bath Iron Shipbuilding Corp. of South Portland, USA.

WW2 Merchant Navy Sites

	British Merchant Navy At War 1939-1945 - Another excellent site!
	Canadian Merchant Navy Book of Remembrance
	Canadian Casualty List of WWII Merchant Seamen Billy McGee has compiled a list of the Canadian Merchant Mariners lost from Canadian, British and foreign ships in WWII. This list includes British Seamen lost on Canadian owned/managed ships.
	Canadian Veteran's Affairs site - Information about Canada's merchant navy and shipbuilding-programmes
	Canonesa, Convoy HX72 & U-100 - Describing the attack on the Convoy in September 1940 and has a memorial to the 116 men who died. The site also acts as a tribute to the contribution of the allied merchant seamen during the Second World War
	Commonwealth War Graves Commission - Searchable database for those who died in WW1 & WW2
	Convoys - WW1 & WW2 convoy routes
	John Townsend's Website - Informative and interesting website from a WW2 Merchant Navy veteran.
	OS and OS/KMS Convoy Series (UK - Freetown, Sierra Leone/ Gibraltar) A database of vessels that sailed in the OS and OS/KMS series of convoy.
	OS.33 - A detailed account of convoy OS.33, which set sail on 1 July 1942 and the vessels that were sunk by the wolf pack, 'Hai'. Rob Fisher's Naval History and Genealogy - Very informative site on the Canadian naval history of WW2.
	U-Boats - A very comprehensive site on German U-Boats
	U.S. Merchant Marine -Dedicated to the American Mariners who died in service of their country during all Wars
	Warsailors - A must for those researching Norwegian Merchant Mariners and Ships

Other WW2 Standard Built Ships

Mariners - Listings of WW1 and WW2 Standard built Ships

Liberty Ships:

	Learning and Liberty Ships - Links to research papers and other Liberty related sites.
	Project Liberty Ships - From the organization dedicated to the preservation of the Liberty Ship S.S. JOHN W BROWN as a living Memorial to the men and women who built the great Liberty Fleet
	The Last of the Liberty ships - an interesting article about the 'Jeremiah O'Brien'.

Merchant Navy Sites

	National Merchant Navy Association
	Gilbert Provost's - Register of ships database
	Bob Sanders - A very useful site with advice on tracing sea faring ancestors
	Mariners - Excellent resource for researching the mariners and ships of the merchant marine and the world's navies
	MNA Branch Walton-on-Naze. Essex
	The Official Website of T.S. Vindicatrix Association - For all Vindi Boys
	The Red Duster - A site dedicated to the British Merchant Navy

Other WW1 and WW2 websites of particular interest

	Allies In War - A very interesting website which originally started for Girls in the UK who married Allied Servicemen and moved overseas, but has now developed into a historical & educational web site covering WW1 and WW2.
	Naval-History.Net - Predominantly Royal Naval History but a very comprehensive and interesting site dealing with major naval events during WW1, WW2 and Falklands Campaign. Researched, written and designed by Gordon Smith.

Ship Photographs

I am being increasingly asked for sources of ship photographs and so I am putting together a list of known suppliers of Fort, Park and Ocean ship photographs. If anyone knows of any others, please let me know.

	Canada Science and Technology Museum - For photographic images of Canada including ship photographs
	Great Lakes Vessels - On-line photographs and details of Great Lakes vessels, including a number of Fort and Park ships.
	Shipsearch Marine - Captain Hubert Hall has a large selection of photographs. I now have a list of Forts, Parks and Oceans that he can provide.
	Iain B Lovie's Ship Photographs - Based in New Zealand, Iain has a number of standard WW2 built ship photographs for sale. For a list, visit his website.
	Fotoflite - Have a large selection of photographs. Please note that their online catalogue is not a complete list of their holdings.
	V.H. Young & L.A. Sawyer Ship Negative Collection The on-line catalogue currently lists 86 Fort, 69 Park and 44 Ocean photographs available for purchase. The catalogue is not complete so it may be worth contacting Mr Young if the ship you seek is not listed.

The maritime museums are a good source

	The National Maritime Museum - You can order a photograph of many of the 'Fort' ships from the NMM.
	North Vancouver Maritime Museum - The Burrard Dockyard records and photographs are held here.
	Maritime Museum of the Atlantic - This museum in Nova Scotia, Canada has a large photographic collection.
	South African Maritime Museum - Online database of the 18,000 photographs they hold from the John Marsh Maritime Collection.
	The Dock Museum Barrow-in-Furness - Holds the Vickers Photographic Collection with on-line search facility. U-532 was displayed and photographed at the dockyard in 1945 before the transfer to Loch Ryan for it's disposal in Operation Deadlight. Some close-up photographs of the U-boat are on-line (NB - search for U 532 without a hyphen).

I again appeal for copies of photographs that you may have in your photograph albums.

A new International Forum where you can post and reply to questions and discussions about the Merchant Navy

Find friends from the military forces including Army, Navy and Air Forces in the UK, Australia and New Zealand & Canada...

Model Ship Building

I am frequently asked where plans can be obtained for model ship building. The following information may be of interest:

In S C Heal's book "A Great Fleet of Ships The Canadian Forts and Parks" there is a fold-out copy of the original plan from which the Forts, Parks and Oceans were built. The scale is 1 inch to 16 ft.

North Vancouver Maritime Museum sent me the following information (June 2003):

"We do have some plans of WW II ships These are a part of our collection of Versatile
Pacific Shipyards records. These are full size plans, mostly about 8 ft. by 3 ft. These include:

1. General Arrangement and 2. Midship Section for the North Sands ships, and

1.General Arrangement and 2.Inboard Profile and Tank Top for the Victory ships.
We generally charge $20 Canadian for each drawing, plus mailing costs, which are about $5 for each order."

Contact the museum for more information.

The Model Dockyard in Cornwall, England

Catalogue No. MAR2812. Price £14 (about $32 Canadian) plus shipping. Their
description reads:
Laurentian Hill Two sheet plans for the North Sands Standard Cargo Ship, built 1943. Simple construction, ample displacement, 1:100th scale, 1325mm loa and 170mm beam, make for an excellent working model. No construction data on plans. August 2001 MMI. Designed by Jim Po

If anyone can add to this list, please contact me.

Bibliography

The books I have used in my research are listed below:

This book is a must for those seriously interested in the Canadian-built Fort and Park Ships

Heal, S.C., A Great Fleet of Ships, (Vanwell Publishing Ltd 1999, ISBN 1-55125-023-3)

HMSO, British Merchant Vessels Lost or Damaged by Enemy Action During The Second World War (HM Stationery Office, 1947)

HPC Publishing, Shipping Today & Yesterday, (HPC Publishing Jan. & Feb. 1999 issues)

Lloyds Register of Shipping 1943-1944

Lloyds War Losses for WWII

Lloyds Captains' Register

Mitchell, W.H. & Sawyer L.A., The Oceans, the Forts and the Parks: Merchant shipbuilding for British account in North America during World War II (Sea Breezes, Liverpool, 1966) Now out of print.

Rohwer, Jurgen, Axis Submarine Successes of World War Two (Greenhill Books 1999, ISBN 1853673404)

Sharpe, Peter, U-Boat Fact File (Midland Publishing Ltd 1998, ISBN 1857800729)

Slader, John, The Fourth Service: Merchantmen at War 1939-45 (Hale 1994, ISBN 0709048483)

Tennent, Alan J, British and Commonwealth Merchant Ship Losses To Axis Submarines 1939-1945 (Sutton Publishing Ltd 2001, ISBN 0-7509-2760-7)

Young, John M., Britain's Sea War: A Diary of Ship Losses 1939-1945 (Patrick Stephens 1989, ISBN 185260 042X) Now out of print.

Other Sources

Registry of Shipping and Seamen, Cardiff - Agreements and Crew lists of the Fort Longueuil, survivor statements. These records have now been transferred to the Public Record Office.

National Maritime Museum - Research information

Canadian War Museum - Information on the Fort Longueuil

Canada Science and Technology Museum - who granted permission to use the following photographs:

Jasper Park CN001567
Launch of Fort Stikine CN000200
Prince Rupert Dockyard CN000178

Thank-you!

.... to all those who have helped me in my research. Initially my queries were in regard to the Fort Longueuil and it's last voyage, but through the generosity of a lot of people, I gathered a sizeable amount of information on the Fort Ships which has been used to produce this site.

.... to those who have donated photographs for use on this web site. If anyone else wishes to donate photographs of any of the ships listed on this site, I would be very grateful.

.... for visiting 'The Fort Ships of WW2' website. Please leave a message in the Guestbook or email me direct.

Copyright Notice

To my knowledge this web site doesn't contain any unauthorized copyrighted information or photographs. The photos have been mainly donated by third persons and I have inquired as to the original owners. However, should there be anything on this site which is unauthorized, please contact me and I will immediately remove it.

Send mail to Angela DeRoy-Jones with questions or comments about this web site.
Last modified: May 27, 2004

Copyright notice: Please note that the photographic copyright belongs to that of the original owners.