Figures
What follows is counted from the crew lists in this database: 66 lists, 51 ships actually lost, 242,036 gross tons, 1,592 dead. It is not the whole Belgian merchant navy – it is the part for which a crew list survived.
Ships lost per month
The heaviest month by number of ships is June 1940: four in eleven days, three of them on 11 June alone, as the German advance reached the Channel coast – the Albertville and the Piriapolis were both bombed at Le Havre. After that the losses move out into the Atlantic, thinner on the ground but bigger.
Show the figures
| Month | Ships |
|---|---|
| 1939-09 | 1 |
| 1939-12 | 1 |
| 1940-01 | 2 |
| 1940-06 | 4 |
| 1940-07 | 1 |
| 1940-08 | 1 |
| 1940-09 | 2 |
| 1940-10 | 1 |
| 1940-11 | 1 |
| 1940-12 | 2 |
| 1941-01 | 2 |
| 1941-02 | 1 |
| 1941-03 | 3 |
| 1941-04 | 3 |
| 1941-05 | 1 |
| 1941-06 | 1 |
| 1941-08 | 1 |
| 1941-12 | 1 |
| 1942-01 | 1 |
| 1942-05 | 2 |
| 1942-06 | 1 |
| 1942-07 | 1 |
| 1942-08 | 1 |
| 1942-09 | 2 |
| 1942-10 | 1 |
| 1942-12 | 2 |
| 1943-01 | 2 |
| 1943-03 | 1 |
| 1943-05 | 1 |
| 1943-11 | 1 |
| 1944-09 | 1 |
| 1944-12 | 1 |
| 1945-02 | 1 |
| 1945-03 | 1 |
| 1945-04 | 1 |
| 1945-07 | 1 |
Tonnage lost per month
Show the figures
| Month | Gross tons |
|---|---|
| 1939-09 | 5,965 |
| 1939-12 | 1,146 |
| 1940-01 | 4,103 |
| 1940-06 | 24,864 |
| 1940-07 | 4,984 |
| 1940-08 | 7,590 |
| 1940-09 | 1,378 |
| 1940-10 | 5,186 |
| 1940-11 | 4,398 |
| 1940-12 | 12,782 |
| 1941-01 | 6,775 |
| 1941-02 | 5,254 |
| 1941-03 | 3,433 |
| 1941-04 | 13,773 |
| 1941-05 | 5,086 |
| 1941-06 | 7,886 |
| 1941-08 | 1,087 |
| 1941-12 | 2,902 |
| 1942-01 | 9,626 |
| 1942-05 | 9,534 |
| 1942-06 | 5,085 |
| 1942-07 | 4,312 |
| 1942-08 | 7,167 |
| 1942-09 | 7,804 |
| 1942-10 | 5,403 |
| 1942-12 | 10,855 |
| 1943-01 | 10,221 |
| 1943-03 | 4,621 |
| 1943-05 | 4,996 |
| 1943-11 | 7,217 |
| 1944-09 | 8,718 |
| 1944-12 | 11,509 |
| 1945-02 | 5,382 |
| 1945-03 | 3,422 |
| 1945-04 | 6,959 |
| 1945-07 | 613 |
Convoys with a Belgian ship aboard, by month
The rest of this page counts losses. This counts voyages, and that is the counterweight. Our ships sailed in 1,069 different convoys, 1,195 times in all, across 63 series; 54 ships appear in them. The great majority of those crossings simply arrived.
The peak does not fall where the losses do. Convoy sailing grew as the war went on, while losses fell away after May 1943 – the ships sailed more, and more safely. From the Arnold Hague Convoy Database.
Show the figures
| Month | Convoys |
|---|---|
| 1939-12 | 1 |
| 1940-04 | 1 |
| 1940-05 | 3 |
| 1940-06 | 7 |
| 1940-07 | 8 |
| 1940-08 | 7 |
| 1940-09 | 18 |
| 1940-10 | 19 |
| 1940-11 | 17 |
| 1940-12 | 13 |
| 1941-01 | 14 |
| 1941-02 | 13 |
| 1941-03 | 18 |
| 1941-04 | 11 |
| 1941-05 | 12 |
| 1941-06 | 17 |
| 1941-07 | 21 |
| 1941-08 | 22 |
| 1941-09 | 16 |
| 1941-10 | 16 |
| 1941-11 | 17 |
| 1941-12 | 11 |
| 1942-01 | 15 |
| 1942-02 | 9 |
| 1942-03 | 15 |
| 1942-04 | 14 |
| 1942-05 | 17 |
| 1942-06 | 17 |
| 1942-07 | 19 |
| 1942-08 | 19 |
| 1942-09 | 20 |
| 1942-10 | 16 |
| 1942-11 | 28 |
| 1942-12 | 19 |
| 1943-01 | 12 |
| 1943-02 | 16 |
| 1943-03 | 23 |
| 1943-04 | 17 |
| 1943-05 | 18 |
| 1943-06 | 28 |
| 1943-07 | 29 |
| 1943-08 | 23 |
| 1943-09 | 27 |
| 1943-10 | 25 |
| 1943-11 | 20 |
| 1943-12 | 17 |
| 1944-01 | 17 |
| 1944-02 | 20 |
| 1944-03 | 25 |
| 1944-04 | 18 |
| 1944-05 | 16 |
| 1944-06 | 23 |
| 1944-07 | 29 |
| 1944-08 | 29 |
| 1944-09 | 19 |
| 1944-10 | 13 |
| 1944-11 | 7 |
| 1944-12 | 16 |
| 1945-01 | 15 |
| 1945-02 | 18 |
| 1945-03 | 20 |
| 1945-04 | 16 |
| 1945-05 | 23 |
The ships that sailed in the most convoys
| Ship | Convoys |
|---|---|
| Anna | 96 |
| Belgian Sailor | 85 |
| Belgian Seaman | 59 |
| Belgian Fisherman | 48 |
| Henri Jaspar | 47 |
| Mafuta | 43 |
| Belgian Freighter | 43 |
| Belgian Airman | 43 |
| Copacabana | 41 |
| Ampetco | 37 |
| Persier | 35 |
| Emile Francqui | 35 |
Lives lost per month
One month dwarfs everything: December 1944, when the Leopoldville was torpedoed off Cherbourg on Christmas Eve. That single evening cost more lives than the five years before it together. Note March 1945 too – the Astrida, with 88 dead, most of them Congolese aboard whom the source does not name.
Show the figures
| Month | Dead |
|---|---|
| 1939-12 | 1 |
| 1940-01 | 16 |
| 1940-04 | 1 |
| 1940-06 | 15 |
| 1940-08 | 14 |
| 1940-10 | 1 |
| 1940-11 | 20 |
| 1940-12 | 60 |
| 1941-01 | 30 |
| 1941-02 | 7 |
| 1941-03 | 34 |
| 1941-04 | 85 |
| 1941-05 | 7 |
| 1941-06 | 7 |
| 1941-08 | 11 |
| 1941-12 | 35 |
| 1942-01 | 65 |
| 1942-05 | 34 |
| 1942-06 | 1 |
| 1942-07 | 1 |
| 1942-08 | 21 |
| 1942-09 | 43 |
| 1942-10 | 5 |
| 1942-12 | 61 |
| 1943-01 | 17 |
| 1943-03 | 29 |
| 1943-11 | 48 |
| 1944-09 | 33 |
| 1944-12 | 770 |
| 1945-02 | 20 |
| 1945-03 | 88 |
| 1945-04 | 1 |
| 1945-07 | 3 |
What was left of the fleet
In September 1939 the Belgian merchant navy measured 472,182 gross tons. The ships in this database account for 242,036 tons of that lost, or 51 % of the fleet the country went to war with.
The real loss was heavier. Of the whole fleet only about 27 % was still afloat at the end – but not every ship that was lost left a crew list behind, and only what survived is here. The line below is therefore a floor, not a final figure.
By year
| Year | Ships | Gross tons | Dead |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1939 | 2 | 7,111 | 1 |
| 1940 | 14 | 65,285 | 127 |
| 1941 | 13 | 46,196 | 216 |
| 1942 | 11 | 59,786 | 231 |
| 1943 | 5 | 27,055 | 94 |
| 1944 | 2 | 20,227 | 803 |
| 1945 | 4 | 16,376 | 112 |
How these figures were counted
- Ships lost. A ship counts once, on the day she went down. Three ships have two crew lists – the Carlier, the Mokambo and the Thysville – and are not counted twice. Ships damaged but still afloat are not counted as losses; their dead are still counted.
- Dead. Everyone who died, including on ships that did not sink, and including the 270 people aboard whom the source counts without naming. 37 of them died.
- Without a date. 9 lists carry no date because those ships were not lost: they are service lists of who stayed aboard. They are therefore absent from the monthly charts, and do not count as losses either.
- Tonnage. Gross tons as the crew list prints them. Other sources sometimes give slightly different figures for the same ship; what stands here is what the source says.