Wartime Merchant Ships

ss EMPIRE HARMONY

Gordon Mumford's third ship

Details of the 1943/44 voyage are given in The Black Pit . . . and Beyond

The Mediterranean (1943-1944)

The Voyage:

March 26, 1943 - September 5, 1944 (crew replaced in Naples).

    A heavy-lift ship with eighty-ton derricks, the Empire Harmony was used to replace destroyed dock port facilities in captured ports. Gordon joined the ship in West Hartlepool, England, in March 1943 as the second radio officer, and sailed for Gibraltar and the Mediterranean.

     From Gibraltar, the ship joined another convoy bound for Algiers. On arrival at Algiers, the Empire Harmony joined a third convoy. This was a small convoy (about five Merchant ships) that was ordered to the port of Bone near the border of Tunisia and Algeria. On the fall of Cape Bon, the convoy was ordered to proceed to Malta, and sailed with a heavy escort of naval ships. This was the first convoy to reach Malta from the west after the disastrous convoy Pedestal in 1942. Until their arrival, supplies had come from the east by aircraft and British submarines stationed in the port of Alexandria.

    Next, they went on to Alexandria and along the coast to Tripoli where the ship spent three or four months before being sent to Naples. They stayed six months in Naples where they were attached to the US 5th Army. Another crew was sent out from Britain, and the officers and crew were given leave, and returned to the UK in September 1944.

Arrival of the Empire Harmony in Valetta, Malta

An Excerpt from The Black Pit ... and Beyond

The island of Malta comes into sight in the afternoon, and marks the end of our voyage. We round its coast and prepare to enter Valletta Harbour. One by one, the ships pass through the entrance to the harbour, watched by countless people who have one eye on us and the other on the sky watching for the inevitable air raids. A new phase has begun for Malta. With the Allies occupying the whole North African coast, they are no longer under siege.

Talking excitedly, Jimmy, Ralph and I lean against the ship’s rail. “It’s almost like we’re liberators, man," says Jimmy. "Look at them, men, women and children. They’re everywhere, even on the bloody breakwater, waving and shouting.”

The excitement is contagious and brings a lump to my throat as we wave back. The Empire Harmony moves slowly down the Grand Harbour and berths alongside the main docks by the gateway to the city of Valletta, close to the battered and flattened suburb of Floriana.

We dock amidst a hubbub of noise from the excited crowds who watch from the tall cliffs which rear vertically behind the docks at that point in the harbour. Almost immediately gangs of swarthy men swarm aboard. Under orders from the mate, the stevedoring crews begin to remove the hatches and unload our cargo. The high explosives, ammunition, food and general cargo we have brought are all welcome additions to the island’s needs, because their stocks are running dangerously low.

Valletta harbour and the nearby suburbs have been heavily damaged by bombing. Now, with liberation of the North African continent and the lifting of the siege, the occupation of Malta is no longer a priority for the Axis powers. The enemy are more concerned with the defense of Sicily and the Italian mainland than with attacking Malta. The air attacks from Sicily and southern Italy continue to harass the Allied Forces on a reduced scale, and to slow the buildup of supplies for any future invasion of the mainland.

The sudden wail of air raid sirens interrupts work in the holds and on the deck of the ship. The labourers and stevedores scramble over the side of the ship and into the nearby air raid shelters, which are bored deep in the cliff.

The crew take up action stations and I scramble up the ladder to my post in the gun nest. Valetta’s anti-aircraft guns open up on the high-flying enemy bombers, and their shell bursts pepper the sky. Frustrated, I sit behind the Browning, its butt firmly gripped against my shoulder, and realize the futility of my task. The aircraft are flying well above the range of a machine gun.

Watching the action, I feel secure behind the concrete and metal protective bulwark of the gun pit. It relieves my feelings just to sit there, alone, wearing a standard British tin hat to guard against falling shrapnel.

Due to the height at which the enemy bombers are flying, the bombing is very inaccurate, and many bombs fall wide of their target. The thin shrieks of the bomb tail fins increase in volume as they approach us, only to fall and explode in erupting water spouts just outside the harbour sea wall, missing the docks.

Not all of the bombs miss, however. The shrieking increases in intensity and strikes fear as the bombs explode, each one nearer than the last. They burst in line as the bombing run hits the town and dock areas, throwing up columns of smoke and debris. Some hit old ruins and re-align the smouldering rubble in grotesque fashions. Our ship, tucked up close to an overhanging cliff alongside the dock, is untouched during these air raids.

***

The Ship: 

Empire Harmony was 2,906 gross tons. British, M.O.W.T. "Scandinavian" design, built by Wm. Gray & Co. Ltd., West Hartlepool in 1943. Launched l8.1.1943; Completed 3.1943. Adapted for use as a crane ship, with larger derricks for heavy-duty lifting.

     In 1947 the ship was renamed Avisbrook (Purvis Shipping Co. Ltd., London). It became the Menastone in 1950 (Stone & Rolfe Ltd., Swansea). In 1961, it was renamed the Capetan Panaos (K. & M. Shipbrokers Ltd., London). In 1966, the ship was sold N. J. Nomikos, Greece). In 1969, the ship went aground and was damaged, and was then scrapped.

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