Flight Lieutenant William B. THOMPSON Date Deceased: October 17, 1995 Age: 81 Service Information Service Number: J26913 Units: Period of Service: World War 2 Legion Branch Information Member Title: Legion Branch: Eric Cormack Branch Location: Sherwood Park, Alberta Last Post: Death Notice | Legion Magazine MV ABOSSO 11 (October 29, 1942) Elder Dempster Lines passenger/cargo liner of 11,330 tons (Capt. R. W. Tate) while on its way from Cape Town to Liverpool, she was attacked and sunk by torpedoes from the U-575 (Kptlt. Gunther Heydemann) about 589 nautical miles (1,091 kilometres) north of Lagens Field, Azores Islands. Two torpedoes were fired at intervals of twenty minutes, the second sinking the Abossa in about fifteen minutes. There were only 31 survivors including five Dutch members of the 33 Netherlands Royal Navy and one female passenger out of the ten women on board. Three of the four Royal Navy men on board survived. All survivors were in lifeboat No 5, the only lifeboat with survivors that didn't capsize. In all, a total of 168 crew and 193 passengers were lost (=361). Among the passengers were 44 newly trained pilots from the No 23 Service Flying Training School, X Flight, Advanced Training Squadron, at Heany, Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia. Pilot Officer William B. Thomson of Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, was the only survivor from this pilot graduating course. Survivors were picked up from the freezing Atlantic 36 hours later when an Australian Navy Lieutenant on board the sloop, HMS Bideford, which was escorting a troop convoy proceeding to North Africa as part of Operation 'Torch', sighted their lifeboat. The sloop put them ashore at Gibraltar three days later.(Pilot officer Thomson was assigned to return to Britain onboard a Sunderland Flying Boat, one of two which were to take off in formation. On take off his plane developed engine trouble and take off was aborted and delayed for a few hours. The other Sunderland, which had a number of high ranking officers on board, plus five passengers, continued on to Britain only to crash in heavy fog upon arrival...all the five passengers were killed. Pilot Officer Thomson claimed that it was only fate or his lowly rank which kept him off the ill-fated flight. (He died in 1993). On the Alamein Memorial are inscribed the names of 19 RAF men lost on the Abosso. Others are commemorated on memorials in various countries including Singapore (21) and one name on the Australian War Memorial. (The U-575 was sunk on March 13, 1944, with the loss of 18 crewmembers. There were 37 survivors) Maritime Disasters of WWII 1942, 1943
Heres a blog that has been started for MV Abosso .... if you would like to read further ! MV Abosso ยป About
I've been trying to track down the Australian side of things through Vincent Winter's Noble Six Hundred but trainees' departure dates are all over the place because of extra courses attended/further training etc. The one downfall of this book is there's no index. I did find mention of a trainee departing Rhodesia via the Atlantic who heard the three previous ships had been torpedoed and was sharing the passage with passengers on their third attempt to make the voyage. Timing was after the loss of the Abosso too.
