WW2 Picture Identified

March 17th, 2004 by JCB
Posted in History | 1 Comment »

 

INFORMATION REQUIRED… AND SUPPLIED

 In the July issue I ran an article on Pilotage in Liverpool during WW2. I illustrated the article with the above photograph taken from a WW2 book about the British Merchant Navy. Harwich pilot Andy Adams has provided the following interesting information about the photograph:

… the illustration comes not from the Liverpool District but from London. The photograph was taken from the head of Southend Pier which at the time was known as HMS LEIGH, the convoy and Naval Control of Shipping base at Southend.

The photograph shows the convoy anchorage inside the boom, which stretched from the Essex to Kent shore, remnants of which are still visible. The vessel on the extreme left with TH on the bows is the Trinity House pilot cutter LIONHEART. Two cutters were always stationed with the convoys and went out to the Sunk LV, landed pilots and then shipped them in the arriving convoys before returning to Southend. LIONHEART was a former Grimsby trawler (GY222) which was converted for pilot service in 1941 after three pilot cutters were requisitioned for service with the RN. She remained with Trinity House until 1948 when she was sold to a Dutch company for further service as a fishing vessel, she was finally broken up in April 1963. One of the London District vessels THPV VIGIA was requisitioned for the examination service at Liverpool and commissioned as HMS ARIEL. After service as an examination vessel she became the nominal base ship for the radar training school until this was transferred ashore to Burtonwood in 1943. After this she was transferred to the War Department  under her civilian name, VIGIA, it is believed that she was used to service the anti-aircraft forts in Liverpool Bay before being returned to Trinity House in

September 1945.