USS Burrows (DE-105) - Sailing Her Fourth Convoy

Sailing Her Fourth Convoy

Burrows departed New York again on 6 October with her fourth convoy. By this time, the German submarine strategy had changed. During her earlier trips, the U-boats were attacked principally in the western and middle Atlantic. Later in the war, as the German effort faltered and the Allies invaded Europe, Dönitz moved his submarines closer to their home bases and concentrated operations in the mid-eastern Atlantic, the Irish Sea, and the English Channel. Burrows' convoy, however, encountered no German U-boats while steaming through the danger zone and arrived safely in Liverpool, England, on 17 October.

The destroyer escort made three more convoy trips before the end of March 1945. Once when she was only a few days out of New York on her seventh eastward crossing, high winds and heavy seas battered her convoy severely. Two of the convoy's merchant ships, SS Lone Jack and SS Frontenac Victory, collided. Burrows stood by the badly damaged ships for nine hours to render assistance, but the ships managed to stay afloat through the night. The night hours visited even more excitement on the warship after a fire broke out in the muffler spaces above her own machinery. Fortunately, her well-drilled damage control parties rapidly extinguished the flames before the ship suffered any serious damage.