D/S Far

To Far on the "Ships starting with F" page.

Pre war picture, when named Ravnefjell, taken at Camden NJ on Aug.-1937 - received from Phil Cohen.

Far in Boston, U.S.A., 1938.
Received from the daughter of 1st Mate Reimert Pedersen
(here's her posting to my Ship Forum, she's interested in obtaining more information).

Misc. War Details:

1st Mate was Reimert Pedersen (from 1938 till 1944), 3rd Mate was Aage Simonsen (from the fall of 1943 until the end of the war, had previously served on M/T Sommerstad and M/S Tigre), Chief Engineer Severin Andreassen (also from 1938 till Dec.-1945). She also had a donkeyman named Ole Johan Nilsen.

Far was in service U.S.A.-England in the period 1941-1943, then in the Mediterranean.

She was scheduled for the slow Sydney [C.B.]-U.K. Convoy SC 54 in Nov.-1941 but instead joined SC 55, pulp wood for Manchester.

She's also listed in Convoy SC 76 from Halifax to the U.K. in March-1942, cargo of phosphates for Ipswich. Early in Aug. that year we find her in the slow Halifax-U.K. Convoy SC 95, cargo of lumber for London, joining with the Sydney, C.B. portion of the convoy. The following month she's listed in station 32 of the westbound North Atlantic Convoy ON 128.

A year later (Sept.-1943) she's listed in station 55 of the slow Halifax-U.K. Convoy SC 141. In Nov.-1943 she shows up in Convoy OS 58/KMS 32 (see external link below), voyaging from Oban to Sicily with coal in station 23. KMS 32 will be added to my own site in due course.

In Jan.-1944 we find her in the Bizerta portion of Convoy MKS 36.

She was loading ammunition at Barletta, Italy in May-1944 when an explosion occurred in one of the cases of ammunition, but the crew, lead by the captain, the 1st and 3rd mates as well as a British lieutenant Terry were able to extinguish the resulting fire before further explosions occurred, thereby saving not only the ship, but the city from destruction. 2 other ships with the same kind of cargo were right behind Far, so the situation was quite dramatic for a while. The ruined cargo was then unloaded and new ammunition taken on board, before she continued to Ancona, which was in ruins at the time. After having unloaded there for 2 days she moved further out, and shortly afterwards a diver found a magnetic mine in the spot were Far had been discharging her cargo.

According to an article I have found, Far was at Bari in the fall of 1944(?) unloading (loading?) ammunition. A Liberty ship was next to her unloading bombs. Far missed the convoy she was scheduled to leave with, but the captain decided to try to catch up with it instead of waiting for the next convoy. About 4 n. miles out she was shaken by an enormous explosion occurring in Bari harbour; those who were below decks thought they had had an explosion on board. It turned out the Liberty ship had exploded, with the loss of her 80 crew as well as several hundred other lives, and again Far had narrowly avoided disaster. I'm a little suspicious here and wonder if the dates and events have become somewhat confused, so that what happend at Bari during the aircraft attack in Dec.-1943 when the Liberty ship S/S John Harvey blew up (see my text for Bollsta), has been mixed with the events of the spring of 1945 when the ammunition ship S/S Charles Henderson exploded during the unloading of cargo (D/S Knoll was set on fire at that time, follow link for more). I don't know enough about the Liberty ships to confirm whether a separate incident did occur at Bari in the fall of 1944, as stated in this article.

Far continued in the supply service in the Mediterranean until Nov.-1945.

POST WAR:

Ran aground on January 8, 1950, off Flekkefjord, and broke up during a storm, when on a voyage from the Tyne to Copenhagen. No casualties.

Related external link:
OS and OS/KMS Convoys - As can be seen, Far is listed in Convoy OS 58/KMS 32. Other Norwegian ships are also included.

Back to Far on the "Ships starting with F" page.

The text on this page was compiled with the help of: "Nortraships flåte", J. R. Hegland, article in "Krigsseileren", Issue No. 2 for 1988, written by Søren Brandsnes, and misc. (ref. My sources).