Extract from statement at a Conference of Ministers, 20th April, At the beginning of the year the three great operational bases of the Western Approaches Command Liverpool, Greenock and Londonderry controlled twenty-five groups of escort vessels totaling some seventy destroyers, eighteen sloops, sixty-seven corvettes and ten ex-American coast guard cutters. The British groups were divided into four categories.
Firstly, the 'Special Escort Groups', composed of short-endurance destroyers, looked after WS and PQ convoys 2 during the first part of their passages, met the 'monster' liners when they started to bring American troops across the Atlantic, and undertook any unusual requirements which might arise.
Secondly, there were the groups of long-range destroyers and corvettes, which provided the ocean escorts for the North Atlantic convoys from the Western Ocean Meeting Point right home to Britain, and also escorted the Gibraltar convoys.
There were now sufficient long-range ships to avoid, save in exceptional circumstances, the complication of having to send escorts to Iceland to refuel while on passage, as had been necessary in These first two categories of escort groups were based on Liverpool, Greenock and Londonderry. The third class of escort. Lastly, there were anti-aircraft groups, which consisted mainly of auxiliary A.
The Greenock, Londonderry and Liverpool groups were theoretically interchangeable, but every endeavour was made to keep each individual group intact and to employ them on one route, thereby gaining the advantage of familiarity not only with each other but with the problems peculiar to that route.
