Hi All,

The destruction of the Panamanian El Lago by U-615 on 11 Oct. 1942 is documented in the member’s area here at uboat.net:

“On 20 Aug, 1942, the El Lago (Master Finn Abrahamson) had left New York, arriving Boston the next day. After loading cargo, she left Boston in convoy BX-35 on 30 August and arrived Halifax two days later. The vessel left Halifax on 5 September with the convoy SC-99 and arrived in Reykjavik on 17 September.

The El Lago left after discharging all her cargo on 5 October in a small convoy of 12 ships in two columns as third ship in the port column with a complement of 39 crew members, 14 armed guards and six merchant seamen being repatriated as passengers. These ships later joined the convoy ONS-136. The convoy ran into a storm with hurricane force winds, tremendous heavy seas, rain and poor visibility about 250 miles south of Iceland. The El Lago was forced to slow down and lost the convoy. At noon on 11 October observations fixed the position of the ship at 442 miles east-northeast of Cape Race, Newfoundland at a speed of 13 knots.

Some hours later, U-615 sighted the ship and fired at 19.59 hours a spread of two torpedoes, both struck the El Lago and broke her in two. The after sections sank immediately and the forward section followed a few minutes later. None of the lifeboats could be launched and the few survivors climbed on rafts, which had floated free.

30 minutes later, U-607 (Mengersen), which had observed the attack surfaced near the ship and U-615 joined her, but soon Mengersen left and the remaining U-boat approached the survivors, asking for the name of the ship and for the master. The Norwegian master and the Dutch first engineer Baas were ordered aboard the U-boat and were taken prisoner. The other survivors on the rafts were never seen again. The crew was made up of seven Norwegians, eight Chinese, five Canadians, five Belgians, three Dutch, two Swedes, two Scots, one Danish, one Irish, one Estonian, one Portuguese, one Pole, one American and one from Latvia. On 3 November, the body of one armed guard was picked up at sea by the USS Manhasset in position 51°10N/40°50W.

Finn Abrahamson was taken to the prison at La Rochelle and was later transferred to the POW camp Marlag near Bremen. On 30 Jul, 1945, he was repatriated from Oslo on the American Liberty ship M.E. Comerford to New York, arriving on 16 August. The engineer was taken to a hospital in Bordeaux suffering from severe burns, where he remained until 20 Dec, 1942 and was then also brought to Marlag. He was repatriated from Rotterdam on 29 Aug, 1945 aboard the steam merchant Morgantown Victory arriving in New York on 7 September. “

Roger, I have never been able to make any sense out of the UK National Archive web site. Is there anything on the page you referenced that I can click on that has any information ON-LINE about the loss of the El Lago?

Regards,

Ken Dunn



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/10/2007 11:35PM by Forum Moderator.