Halcyon Class Minesweepers

HMS Hazard 1944

 
Home
Up
Hazard 1937
Hazard 1938
Hazard 1939
Hazard 1940
Hazard 1941
Hazard 1942
Hazard 1943
Hazard 1944
Hazard 1945
Hazard Post-War
Hazard Crew

 


 HMS Hazard - Halcyon Class Minesweeper
HMS Hazard 1937
 

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)

HMS Hazard in dry dock
(HMS Hazard Association)

     

Home | Hazard 1937 | Hazard 1938 | Hazard 1939 | Hazard 1940 | Hazard 1941 | Hazard 1942 | Hazard 1943 | Hazard 1944 | Hazard 1945 | Hazard Post-War | Hazard Crew

This site was last updated 17 Januar 2012