In the morning of 20 Jan 1945 the George Hawley (Master Charles Paul John Muhle) joined the two column convoy TBC-43 off the Isle of Wight and took station as the second ship in the starboard column.
At 15.38 hours on 21 Jan 1945 the George Hawley was hit by one torpedo from U-1199 about 3 miles off Wolf Trap Lighthouse. The torpedo struck on the starboard side amidships. The explosion destroyed the engines, flooded the engine room immediately, killed one officer and one crewmen on watch below and started a small fire in the galley. The Liberty ship began to list to port as the British coastal tug TID-74 and the steam merchant Wiley A. Wakeman stood by. The remaining seven officers, 32 men and 27 armed guards (the ship was armed with one 5in, one 3in and eight 20mm guns) abandoned ship 20 minutes after the hit in all four lifeboats. They were picked up by the other two ships and landed at Cardiff. The master, the chief mate, the bosun and another crewman reboarded the vessel at 17.00 hours. They passed a line to the tug, which did not have the power to tow the Liberty ship. Eight hours after the attack, the British salvage tug HMS Allegiance (W 50) arrived and took the ship in tow to Falmouth, arriving there on 22 January. She lay beached there until June 1946, when she was refloated, towed to Bremerhaven, Germany, loaded with obsolete chemical ammunition and scuttled at sea in October 1946.