User:TheBestEditorInEngland/SS Hobsons Bay

TSS Hobsons Bay was a twin-screw steamer ocean liner built by Vickers Limited in Barrow-in-Furness, England, in 1922. TSS Esperance Bay HMS Esperance Bay (F67)

http://www.ivanlea.net/sub_pages/hobsonsbay.htm

https://shipstamps.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6946

http://worldwartwodaily.filminspector.com/2016/07/july-14-1940-bastillemourning-day.html

https://www.naval-history.net/xDKCas1940-07JUL.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanalkampf#13%E2%80%9318_July

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convoy_HX_47#Background

http://www.convoyweb.org.uk/hx/index.html

https://www.naval-history.net/xDKWW2-4007-20JUL01.htm

https://boltonremembers.org/name/close-3/

https://www.militaryimages.net/media/walter-josiah-witcher.141609/

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Armed merchant cruiser as HMS Esperance Bay (F67) — 1939—1941


When Britain declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939 and officially joined what would become the Second World War, Esperance Bay was in Australian waters. On 13 September she was requisitioned by the British Admiralty and arrived at Brisbane, Australia, where her conversion into an armed merchant cruiser for the Royal Navy began. She was fitted with 3 breech loading 6-inch (152mm) mark VII naval guns which were low angle guns and to be used against surfaced enemy submarines, raiding parties, or other ships. She left Brisbane via the Cape Peninsula in South Africa for the UK where her conversion would be completed; she was fitted with an additional 4 breech loading 6-inch (152mm) mark VII naval guns and 2 quick firing 3-inch (76mm) mark V anti-aircraft guns which were dually capable of acting as both low angle but also high angle guns, the latter to be used against enemy aircraft. On 28 November, she was commissioned as an armed merchant cruiser into the Royal Navy keeping her pre-war name but styled HMS as HMS Esperance Bay and acquired the pennant number F67.

On 13 July 1940, Esperance Bay departed alone at 23:07 from Portsmouth, UK, bound for Halifax, Canada, carrying a cargo of gold bullion worth £10,000,000 (or roughly £563,500,000 in 2020) as part of Operation Fish, the evacuation of British wealth from the UK to Canada during the Second World War. The next day at about 12:50, she was intercepted and bombed by 6 or more German Heinkel He 111 and Junkers Ju 86 bombers while roughly 100 miles west (49-30N, 6-40W) of Land's End in Cornwall. The attack lasted 55 minutes in which about 40 to 50 bombs were dropped at Esperance Bay with her aft being badly damaged and 7 of her crew killed including Lieutenant Commander Harold Close along with 6 other ratings, but she managed to reach Devonport, Plymouth, steering by her engines without the loss of her precious cargo.