Convoy OG 71

19–23 August 1941, North Atlantic, west of Ireland and Portugal

German victory; eight merchant ships and two escorts sunk

Convoy OG 71 left Liverpool for Gibraltar on 13 August 1941. Found four days later by a long-range Focke-Wulf Condor, it was shadowed from the air while a pack of U-boats gathered, and its crews came to call it the "Nightmare Convoy". In the early hours of 19 August U-201 sank the commodore's ship Aguila, carrying 22 Wrens to Gibraltar; none of them survived. The same night U-204 hit the Norwegian-manned destroyer Bath, which sank in three minutes, and her own depth charges went off among the men in the water. U-559, U-201 and U-564 picked off more ships over the next four days, and on 23 August U-564 sank the corvette Zinnia. Only five merchant ships reached Gibraltar; the rest put into Lisbon. More than 400 people were killed. Women were never again sent to Gibraltar in merchant ships.

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