Ahoy - Mac's Web Log

December 19, 2011

Dear Mr. Gregory,

Firstly let me start my email by congratulating you on a superb website; such a wealth of detail, which I`m sure must have taken an awfully long time to produce.

I came across your site in connection with a project I am conducting on my Grandfather`s wartime service in Burma. Specifically  I write in regard to the aforementioned vessels  (M.V. Aorangi & HMAS Nepal) in connection with research I am currently conducting on the 101st Heavy Anti Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery, in
which he served.

During June 1943 the Ocean Liner M.V. Aorangi transported this regiment and its troops from Kilindini to Bombay, with HMAS Nepal acting as part of the escort force in convoy KR 005.

For sometime now I have been trying to track down the ship's logs / wartime diaries of these two vessels, but to-date have had little success. Recently I spent a great deal of time searching the on-line resources of the Australian National Archive but this produced a very frustrating outcome.

In the case of the M.V Aorangi (built 1924), there are a great deal of files and many log books up to and including 1942, but thereafter there appears to be non. Similarly there appears to be several war diaries for HMAS Nepal,
but none covering the year 1943.
 
As the M.V. Aorangi finished her days in Sydney I'm convinced that the ship's logs were probably all taken ashore in this city and archived, but it appears not all were deposited in the National Archive. As for HMAS Nepal, well I cannot offer an explanation as to why her records seem incomplete.

As I am fairly desperate to pursue documentation for these vessels for the period June 1943 and you obviously have specialist knowledge of such things.

I wonder therefore if I might ask for your guidance on the most likely sources where these documents "might" be held. Perhaps you may know where they are "actually" held?

In short I would very much appreciate you input on this matter as this search has so far been rather frustrating to say the least. Indeed even the National Archive here in the UK has war diaries for HMS Cape Town up to May
1943, but then non afterwards (she was another escort); leaving me wondering what it was about 1943 that made these records seemingly disappear.

Anyway, anything you can add, would be very much appreciated and meanwhile I thank you for your time and any response.

Kind regards, 
John Heard

John,

My thanks for your kind comments about AHOY, I do get a great deal of satisfaction talking to people from across the world. 

I would have expected to find the logs of both ships in the Australian National Archives probably in Sydney, but like you I turned up nothing.

Here is an extract from a book Ubique.

101st H.A.A. Regiment Royal Artillery101st H.A.A. Regiment Royal Artillery in action.

Regards, 
Mac.
 

back to letters index