Allied shipping pool 1939-45

Discussions on WW2 in Western Europe & the Atlantic.
Felix C
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Location: Miami, Fl

Re: Allied shipping pool 1939-45

#16

Post by Felix C » 01 Dec 2017, 15:37

no data on captured German or Italian ships?

Carl Schwamberger
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Re: Allied shipping pool 1939-45

#17

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 24 Jan 2018, 00:36

Were ships owned by US businesses but flagged in neutral nations like Panama present in significant numbers & if so how are they reflected in by Ellis & other inventories?

The reason I ask is that the US cargo fleet shown for 1939 appears not much larger than the Japanese flagged fleet.


Hiryu-
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Location: France

#18

Post by Hiryu- » 17 Mar 2019, 23:05

A quick follow-up, one year and half after the creation of this thread...
Hiryu- wrote:
09 Aug 2017, 18:49
- Ellis in the WW2 databook (table 50 p. 249) gives the tonnage of the MF of several nations in 1939. Among them:
UK: 17,891,134
USA: 8,909,892
Are these numbers for january, september or december 1939?
According to this table the numbers are for July 1st, 1939:
Image
Freebird wrote:
23 Nov 2017, 16:40
Hi Hiryu, there is a large discrepancy between what you asked: "MF available to the Allies" and what Ellis reports "size of the US merchant fleet", as the US "war available total" is much smaller, it's only about 6 - 7 million tons available in 1941 to support the Allied overseas war effort.
The difference is that the US (unlike UK, Dutch, Greek etc) has a huge domestic (internal) MF tonnage which Ellis includes, but isn't usable overseas for the war effort.
You were absolutely right Freebird, Ellis made a slight mistake here. US sea-going capacity was 6,4 m GRT in July 1939, not 8,9 m.

A very interesting link on the subject: https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/Ad ... voy-1.html
By Dec. 1941 the "United Nations" had a shipping pool of 41 m GRT, 57 m at the end of 1944. It seems to include every non-axis ship incl. neutrals. It also gives the shipping lost due to "marine casualties" that I didn't compute in my previous estimates of losses: 2,919,527 GRT up to 1944. S.W. Roskill in "White Ensign" gives marine casualties at "above 3 million GRT" for the whole war.

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