Convoy SC 118

Convoy SC 118
Part of Battle of the Atlantic
USS Schenck (DD-159)
Date 4–7 February 1943 Location North Atlantic Result German tactical victory
Belligerents
United Kingdom  Canada  United States	Germany
Commanders and leaders
CAPT H C C Forsyth RNR CDR Proudfoot RN	Admiral Karl Dönitz
Strength
64 freighters 5 destroyers 2 cutters 4 corvettes	20 submarines
Casualties and losses
8 freighters sunk (51,592GRT) 445 killed/drowned	3 submarines sunk 101 killed/drowned 45 captured

Convoy SC-118 was the 118th of the numbered series of World War II Slow Convoys of merchant ships from Sydney, Cape Breton Island to Liverpool. The ships departed New York City on 24 January 1943 and were met by Mid-Ocean Escort Force Group B-2 consisting of V class destroyers Vanessa and Vimy, the USCG Treasury Class Cutter Bibb, the Town class destroyer Beverley, Flower class corvettes Campanula, Mignonette, Abelia and Lobelia, and the convoy rescue ship Toward.

As western Atlantic coastal convoys brought an end to the second happy time, Admiral Karl Dönitz, the Befehlshaber der U-Boote (BdU) or commander in chief of U-Boats, shifted focus to the mid-Atlantic to avoid aircraft patrols. Although convoy routing was less predictable in the mid-ocean, Dönitz anticipated that the increased numbers of U-boats being produced would be able to effectively search for convoys with the advantage of intelligence gained through B-Dienst decryption of British Naval Cypher Number 3. However, only 20 percent of the 180 trans-Atlantic convoys sailing from the end of July 1942 until the end of April 1943 lost ships to U-boat attack.

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