The Belgian merchant navy in the Second World War
A searchable database of the Belgian merchant ships and their crews between 1939 and 1945: who was aboard, what rank he held, where he came from, and what became of him.
The last departure of the Baudouinville from Antwerp. Photo: MAS Antwerp, public domain.
| Name | Rank | Ship |
|---|
Where they went down
with lives lostno lives lost
The map shows the 29 attacks whose position is on record; for the rest it is not known. Each dot is one attack; the larger the dot, the more died. Click the map to zoom.
Heaviest losses
- LEOPOLDVILLE · 770 lost, 24 December 1944
- ASTRIDA · 88 lost, 19 March 1945
- GANDIA · 65 lost, 22 January 1942
- EMILE FRANCQUI · 56 lost, 16 December 1942
- VILLE D'ARLON · 56 lost, 2 December 1940
- CARLIER · 48 lost, 11 November 1943
- INDIER · 42 lost, 3 April 1941
- ROUMANIE · 42 lost, 24 September 1942
Not everyone is here
The source counts 270 people aboard without ever naming them – Congolese, Arab and Senegalese crew, soldiers, repatriated passengers. 37 of them died. They are counted here but cannot be searched for. That is a gap in the source, and it is kept visible rather than left out.
What the cross-references reveal
Because the same man can appear on several ships, connections surface that stay invisible in a printed list. Four men survived the Rosa in December 1939 and died five weeks later on the Meuse. Both nurses of the Leopoldville survived Christmas Eve 1944 and died seven weeks later on the Persier. Seven of the Carlier's crew endured internment at Dakar, sailed again, and all seven died when she was torpedoed in November 1943.