Year by Year
Discover the history of the HMS Cossack from 1938 to 1941.
You can search the ‘year’ and ‘month’ to find a specific date and also ‘click’ on the date itself to reveal any images and moments from that date.
05 February 1940
Departed Scapa Flow for submarine hunting with SIKH.
Story by Bob Milton a signalman onboard at this time.
The Yeoman told me to
“Take these old signal forms to the boiler room and burn them”. I opened the boiler and started to burn the papers. After a few handfuls I felt something very solid in my hand and to my horror it was a Very Distress Rocket that was about to go up in flames! Later in the Signals Office I noticed that one rocket was missing, having fallen, I presume, from the rack into the Signal Sack stored beneath it. I returned the rocket to its place and said nothing. (Until 2015)
11 February 1940
COSSACK departed Bergen with MOHAWK, SIKH and TATAR as escort to Convoy HN 10B consisting of 20 Norwegian, seven Swedish and two Finnish ships.
CONVOY HN 10B
Sailed from Norway on 12 February 1940, arrived Methil on the 13 February 1940
| Received from Tony Cooper, England – His source: Public Records Office, Kew. What follows is an extract of what can be found in the Advance Sailing telegram for HN 10. Unfortunately, the convoy designations noted on the original documents used for my text on the page about HN 10 are hard to decipher in places, so I cannot guarantee accuracy. My hope is that this will simply be used as a basis for further research. Another document listing all the Norway-U.K. Convoys states that Convoy HN 10B had 20 Norwegian, 7 Swedish, and 2 Finnish ships (12 for west coast), for a total of 29. 1 Norwegian ship appears to be missing in the table below. |
Notes:
Weather on passage was calm with light northerly winds and low westerly swell. In general, the ships kept good station and were good at answering signals.
Torafire dropped back badly and eventually went into Aberdeen.
Escorts mentioned:
HMS Cossack (S.O.?), Sikh, Mohawk, Tartar.
Gurkha and Nubian joined in the morning of 12 February, Diana joined that afternoon (or the next day? document very blurry and date difficult to read).
Cossack and Gurkha left at 17:00 on 12 February(?) and Sikh took charge of convoy (see also this page listing escorts for the HN and ON convoys, which also mentions Edinburgh, Arethusa, Cairo, and Glasgow).
The 12 westbound ships were escorted by
and
after having detached from the convoy on 12 February 1940
