M/T Pan Europe

To Pan Europe on the "Ships starting with P" page.


Scanned from Leif Høegh & Co,'s fleet list and added to this website with the company's permission.

Misc. War Details:

Transported 46 cargoes of oil, 26 of which were for the American Navy, to various theatres of war.

In Nov.-1941 Pan Europe was one of the Norwegian ships that helped search for survivors of HMAS Sydney, but none were found (Herstein and Hermion were also involved, and according to this posting on my Ship Forum, Nordnes and Ohio also took part). Sydney had sunk, and had herself been sunk (with a loss of all her men) by the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran on Nov. 19 (survivors from the German cruiser had been rescued from rafts and lifeboats southwest of Carnarvon, West Australia by allied ships on Nov. 24). My page about Hermion has some links to more details on Sydney's loss (incl. link to complete crew list).

The following month, only three days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the loss of the battle ships Prince of Wales and Repulse stunned the world. (The Norwegian ship Hai Lee transported 150 survivors from those ships from Singapore to Batavia). By the end of the month the Allies had suffered one military defeat after another, due to the rapidly advancing Japanese forces. As the new year of 1942 dawned, supplies and reinforcements had to be shipped to new theaters of operations. Singapore, the Dutch East Indies, the Pacific Islands and even Australia were threatened, and in the course of January, February and March 1942 a steady stream of important military convoys crossed The Indian Ocean to the war zone in the Far East, as well as from Australia and north to the vulnerable areas.

The first convoy from Australia to Singapore, MS 1 left Melbourne on Jan. 10, reaching the Sunda Straits on the 28th. M/T Pan Europe was in this convoy, but while the rest of the ships continued on, she was held back due to the fact that Singapore was under serious threat of the advancing Japanese forces at the time, and also under continuous air attacks.

One Norwegian ship after another found itself right in the middle of this new threat, Hermion (Convoy JS 1), Hindanger, Hellas, Herborg and Herstein, Prominent (also in JS 1), Eidsvoll, Erling Brøvig, Elsa, Seirstad, Tunni, Bordvik, Proteus - the list goes on and on - some survived, others were less fortunate. More details on all of them can be found with the help of the alphabet index at the end of this page.

NOTE: On my Ship forum there's a message stating the following: "Challenged by HMS Queen in the vicinity of the Panama Canal (Pacific side) on 14th April 1944. 1351 Sighted tanker Brg 3150. - 12'. Co 240. 1355 a/c 1000. Z/Z 10. 1408 Challenged. 1414 Identified vessel as Norg. S.S. Pan Europe".

POST WAR:

Sold in May-1950 to Norddeutsche Reederei GmbH, Hamburg (of which J. A. Reinecke later became manager),West Germany and renamed Europa. Arrived at Hamburg in July-1954 to be broken up by Eckhardt & Co.

External links related to the text on this page:
Jan Visser, webmaster of
Royal Netherlands Navy Warships of World War II has listed all the ships in Convoy MS 1 on his page The Singapore Convoys.

Force Z Survivors Association - Has details of the sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse, includes HMS Prince of Wales crew members and HMS Repulse crew members.

London Gazette 1948 - Force Z - Reports on the loss of Prince of Wales and Repulse.

To Pan Europe on the "Ships starting with P" page.

The text on this page was compiled with the help of: "Nortraships flåte", J. R. Hegland, and Leif Høegh & Co. fleet list.