Some Atlantic Convoys Included Ships Meant Mainly to Pick Up Survivors

Rescue ships were fitted out to retrieve and treat men from torpedoed vessels in waters where minutes mattered.

The Battle of the Atlantic tends to center on escorts, submarines, and merchant tonnage. Less often discussed are convoy rescue ships. These vessels were equipped for retrieval and first aid, with crews trained to pull freezing men from the water, record the living and dead, and keep moving with the convoy system. Their existence reveals how industrial war absorbs humanitarian design. Someone had to think not only about sinking and saving ships, but about what happened in the terrible interval after a ship disappeared and before a body surrendered to the sea.