FPHS - Legacy Forum

General Category => Members Discussion Forum => Topic started by: Nick Colley on May 04, 2020, 02:49:52 PM

Title: There's a Q ship involved in the travels of this one
Post by: Nick Colley on May 04, 2020, 02:49:52 PM
Sent from Scotland (FPO 676) in November 1941 to Lt.D.B.Ross, RCNVR, apparently on the cruiser HMS Cornwall. 'Cornwall' has been deleted and 'Botlea' has been inserted. HMS Botlea was a Q ship. She was a coal burning tramp steamer, 5000 tons, and 7 knots. When war broke out, she was taken over by the RN and fitted out as a classic 'Q' Ship. (see https://www.navyhistory.org.au/tag/hms-botlea/). I have yet to find confirmation he was ever aboard HMS Botlea.

Possibly at this point it went to the Fleet Mail Office in central London, from where it appears to have gone to Halifax in Nova Scotia. It is likely that it was from here that it was forwarded to HMCS Mahone. This was a minesweeper, commissioned into the RCN in September 1941, and assigned to the Western Local scort Force (ie Atlantic), based in Halifax NS. It is not understood why it received the Canadian naval censor, dated in June 1942.....

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