Your expertise is requested !

[Ivan Cloherty]

During my shore tenure (60's -70's) in shipping companies we used to destroy B/L's and Manifests after 7 years, the then legal limit for retaining documents in case of claims, each year the 7 year lot would be cleared out to make room for the new intakes, so don't hold out much hope really, unless a private collector retained some which during war and immediate post war period was probably unlikely (security and information useful to an enemy reasons). When you think there were 4 -6000 British vessels plying the oceans in 30's/40/'s and 50's and each B/L had minimum 3 negotiable copies and numerous non negotiable, plus numerous manifests for each port of call then there would have been mountains of paperwork to keep. I doubt if the 7 year rule applied during the war with the then paper and timber shortage as it would have been recycled as soon as possible . Also many records would have lost/destroyed through burning and water damage from enemy bombing raids in numerous ports, also cargoes not reaching our shores through sinkings there would have been no reason to retain documents once the statisticians had finished with them, as claims could not be made as the cargoes would have come under the 'Force Majeure' clause contained in every Time or Voyage Charter

Sorry to be a wet blanket, but wish you luck in your endeavours

[Mark Keever]

You did provide excellent insight, THANK-YOU ! I guess the government sector is pretty much ruled out, eh ? The off chance that some data might still be available and a investigative trail to a " company " sponsored archive was hoped. But, alas...

[Ivan Cloherty]

Don't give up yet as I find that librarians at various universities love a challenge, as the vessel was Canadian then a starting point would be a university in her port of registry, Canadians love statistics, gives them something to do when they cannot get out in the long winter months! plus they've lots of space to store things!.

As she was sunk off the coast of Maine, she would probably have been heading for Halifax Nova Scotia, a marshalling point for slow vessels for N Atlantic Convoys, so maybe a university in Halifax may be able to help

[Mark Keever]

Again, Thank-you for the direction ! She was bound for St. John, N.B. of the Great White North. Being owned by Canadian National Steamships, I guess that is another avenue to pursue...