China-Burma-India (Son)

[emprie]

Hi Guys!

I'm an American doing research on an american, My dad. I know you guys are Brit's and your thing is British Ships, and so on...but I was surffing the WWW and came across your site. Dad was in the big on from 42 to 46 , he went overseas on a troopship, and I am trying to find its name, what i found was a photo showing some guys boarding on the gangplank but the photo dose not show much ship, the caption says ' embarking on the H.R.-617, it was doing so from Newport News VA USA, 11/3/43. Thats all I have the -----HR-617----- I am trying to find out what it means so I can find a name....Dad was in the 8th airdrome Sqnd. , mainly in China....also attached to 315ASG and 23rd FG, 14th AAF. Hello and Thanks for any help....Emprie.

[Ron B Manderson]

welcome Emprie.
Hope you get all the imfo you seek
Enjoy the site .
Ron the batcave
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[Gulliver]

Hi Emprie, and Welcome!

1/. You may already be aware of the TROOPSHIPS CROSSINGS Site .
I only had a quick look but none tallied with the date( I checked both U.S. and U.K..methods of date annotation i.e. 11/3/43 and 3/11/43.)

Note the foreword though to the site:-

'The Records of ships used to carry troops to their theaters of operations were destroyed intentionally in 1951. "According to our [U. S. National Archives] records, in 1951 the Department of the Army destroyed all passenger lists, manifests, logs of vessels, and troop movement files of United States Army Transports for World War II." (Sorry, but there was no word on why the records were destroyed.) Thus there is no longer an official record of who sailed on what ship, though there are still valuable sources that can be found. So this web page is an informal collecting ground for information about troop ship crossings.'


　

2/. I may be wrong,but the reference to HR 617 sounds like an Eastbound(odd numbered) Convoy Number,with HR being the code from the originating point Hampton Roads VA (i.e. Newport News.)
However I canot see such convoys listed in the CONVOY WEB Site. But do have a good look through the various databases yourself.
Remember such troopships,although probably given such reporting /movements/numbers would for obvious secrecy reasons sail independently and not in a convoy.

Hoping others can guide you further.

Regards
Gulliver