Information on the Tanker 'British Sergeant from World War II

[Naren Gunasekera]

Hello All,

I hope you don’t mind me joining this group but I am trying to track down any information about the ship called the British Sergeant which was sunk during WWII. I searched the forums but there appears to be a ship with the same name that is more modern but this was an oil tanker sunk on 8 April 1942 by the Japanese off the Eastern Coast of Sri Lanka.

All I have as leads at the moment is a BBC article (BBC - WW2 People's War - Tanker 'British Sergeant' ? Eric Pointon's War Story) and the names Eric Pointon who served on the ship and David Pointon who wrote the article. We are also checking with the Hermes Surviviors Association and I am writing to the BBC to try and get a hold of David.

The reason we are looking for him is because we believe we may have found the wreck of the British Sergeant when we were diving off the coast of Batticaloa a few weeks ago. We are looking for any information on possible location of where it went down, survivor accounts, pictures of the wreck that we may be able to use in identification.

Please note that we have not given the location to anybody and we are very strict about the fact that none of us who dive the ship can bring anything back from the ship. Some of the people who dived it have already worked with the Hermes Survivor Association to document the Hermes wreck. More information on the Hermes and the new wreck can be found below. Any and all help is greatly appreciated.

www.DiveSriLanka.com - H.M.S Hermes

www.DiveSriLanka.com - British Sergeant or SS Norviken?

cheers
Naren

[DeepSea]

According to Lloyd's War Losses Vol. I, the attack took place five miles East of Elelphant Point and the position of the sinking was 08' 01N 81' 40E

[Keith at Tregenna]

Also worth looking at for more info:

LINK: SS British Sergeant [+1942] - WRECK SITE

Although recorded as 09/04/1942,

On 9th April, Japanese Operation C continues. The Japanese carrier striking force (Vice Admiral Nagumo Chuichi) raids Trincomalee, Ceylon, which has been cleared of shipping in expectation of the attack.

Despite the precautions taken by the British, Japanese carrier bombers attack the ships they find returning to Trincomalee.

British carrier HMS Hermes is sunk, as is Australian destroyer HMAS Vampire, British corvette HMS Hollyhock, depot ship HMS Athelstane and RFA oiler British Sergeant.

Is noted further at LINK: http://www.naval-history.net/xDKWD-EF1942a.htm

April 8th
0907

Catalina reported sighted three battleships and one aircraft carrier in position 09-18N, 84-40E, course 350 degrees, speed unknown

1128

Flag Officer in Charge, Trincomalee, ordered to sail the following ships independently to the southward in view of possible dawn air attack on Trincomalee on 9th April. HMS HERMES and HMAS VAMPIRE, HM Ships TEVIOTBANK and HOLLYHOCK, R.F.A. PEARLEAF, A.S.I. and tankers ATHELSTANE and BRITISH SERGEANT.

?

Your own web site of interest, LINK: http://divesrilanka.com/DSVakaraiMKBigShip.html

I would imagine that your interest is more proving which wreck, but add all details as found, hopefully, this may also assist others and may find more info and confirmations etc.

"We were bound from Trincomalee to Colombo with a cargo of 7,000 tons of admiralty fuel oil. The ship was armed with a 4 inch gun, 2 rifles & 2 P.A.C rockets. The crew, including 1 Australian Naval Gunner, numbered 52 of whom 3 men were injured. All confidential books, including wireless were thrown overboard in a weighted bag. The vessel was degaussed and the apparatus was switched on.

We left Trincomalee on the 9th April at 0100, sailing independently escorted by HMS Hollyhock, bound for Colombo. At 0900 we saw HMS Hermes, HMS Vampire and the S.S British Sergeant some distance away from us, all three ships being attacked by aircraft".


LINK: http://www.hmshollyhock.co.uk/last_moments.htm


K.

[Tony Wilding]

oil tanker british seargeant

[Tony Wilding]

another view at capetown

[Naren Gunasekera]

Wow! Thank you everyone for the information! Let me take a look at everything and get this information to the team. We are looking to go back first weekend of October and more thoroughly photodocument the wreck so hopefully we can make some comparisons with the photographs.

Thanks again!

[Tony Wilding]

Hi, the norviken was a small ship, under 3000 tons, british sergeant was almost twice her size nearly 6000 tons, u said it was a big ship you found, could well be british sergeant. Keep us posted, tony.

[Tony Wilding]

Mirimar ships index states her position is 8.00n / 81.38e tony.

[Tony Wilding]

She was apparently sent to sea because of impending jap air attack, but with no aircraft on board for defence or attacking capabality, and only 3 anti aircraft guns, her escort had only half her anti aircraft armement, i wonder who was the brains of that decision, a fatal choice of orders.

[Naren Gunasekera]

Hi all,

thanks for all the great info. Just a quick update, a friend and I went out and dived the site again over the weekend. Unfortunately we had car trouble and had a 9 hour odyssey to get back home so could only do two dives instead of the 5-6 we hoped for. We did however take a rough measurement of the width which came up to around 19 meters. Given the errors in taking such measurements underwater the evidence is leaning on the side of British Sergeant as this is too big for the Norviken.

Norviken - 13.9 meters
British Sergeant - 16.5 meters

We are going through the photos we took, found some new images of the British Sergeant as well online and are putting together some Google earth shots of wreck locations and the coordinates provided above, etc. I will post a link once we are done.

Thanks again!