Transportation Archives | When World War II Came to Bell Island, Newfoundland

Diver swims through a torpedo hole in shipwreck

A female scuba diver swims through a torpedo hole in the hull of one of the Bell Island shipwrecks. The thick steel plates of the hull are bent […]

Multibeam sonar image of P.L.M. 27 shipwreck

High-resolution multibeam sonar image of P.L.M. 27 shipwreck. Shallower features shown in yellow, deeper objects in blue and purple. The bow of the ship is on the left, […]

Multibeam sonar image of Saganaga shipwreck

High-resolution multibeam sonar image of the Saganaga shipwreck. Shallower features shown in red and orange, deeper objects in blue and purple. The bow of the ship is on […]

SS Rose Castle loading iron ore at Scotia pier

SS Rose Castle loading iron ore from the Bell Island iron mines at the Scotia pier in 1942. Ore was carried in ore cars on rails from the […]

SS P.L.M. 27 before World War II

P.L.M. 27 was owned by a French railway company before World War II. The ship carried coal to feed the railway’s locomotives. This photo shows the ship loading […]

SS Rose Castle in 1942

A Royal Canadian Air Force plane took this photo of Rose Castle as she left Sydney, Nova Scotia in the first convoy (BW 1) to Bell Island, Newfoundland […]

SS Lord Strathcona

The steamship Lord Strathcona was owned by the Dominion Shipping Company, a subsidiary of the Dominion Steel & Coal Corporation, which owned the Bell Island iron mines. The […]

SS Saganaga before World War II

SS Saganaga was a British steamship owned by the South Georgia Company Ltd. (Christian Salvesen & Company) of Leith, Scotland. All but one of the crew were from […]

Nameplate from SS Lord Strathcona

This wooden nameplate from SS Lord Strathcona washed up onshore on Bell Island after the sinking. The nameplate was attached to the exterior of the ship’s bridge. It […]