Convoy SC 107 | |||||||
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Part of Battle of the St. Lawrence, Battle of the Atlantic | |||||||
RCAF Lockheed Hudson, like the one that sank U-658 | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
United Kingdom Canada | Germany | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
VADM B C Watson LCDR D.W. Piers RCN[1] | Admiral Karl Dönitz | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
39 freighters 2 destroyers 6 corvettes | 17 submarines | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
15 freighters sunk (83,790GRT) 150 killed/drowned |
2 submarines sunk 100 killed/drowned (3 sunk, if counting U-520 before the subs attacked) |
Convoy SC 107 was the 107th of the numbered series of World War II Slow Convoys of merchant ships from Sydney, Cape Breton Island to Liverpool.[2] The ships departed New York City on 24 October 1942 and were found and engaged by a wolfpack of U-boats which sank fifteen ships.[3] It was the heaviest loss of ships from any trans-Atlantic convoy through the winter of 1942–43.[4] The attack included one of the largest non-nuclear man-made explosions in history, when U-132 torpedoed ammunition ships SS Hobbema and SS Hatimura - both were sunk, one exploded, with the German submarine also being destroyed in the explosion.