page_title: HMT Bedfordshire
section_title: Sinking
hierarchical_section_title: HMT Bedfordshire / Sinking
caption_attribution_description: English: Commemorative plaque at the British Cemetery at Ocracoke Village, North Carolina, describing the naval trawler HMT Bedfordshire, sunk with all hands by U-558 on 11 May 1942, off the coast of Okrakoke Island..
context_page_description: HMT Bedfordshire was an armed naval trawler in the service of the Royal Naval Patrol Service during World War II. Transferred to the East Coast of the United States to assist the United States Navy with anti-submarine patrols, she was staffed by a British and Canadian crew. Bedfordshire was sunk by the German submarine U-558 on 11 May 1942 off the coast of Ocracoke Island in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, with the loss of all hands.
context_section_description: On 10 May 1942, Bedfordshire and HMT St Loman were dispatched from Morehead City to search for a U-boat believed to be in the vicinity of Ocracoke Island. The ships were spotted by U-558, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Günther Krech. Later in the evening Krech, believing his sub had been detected, fired on St Loman, which spotted the torpedoes and evaded them. The search continued throughout the night. At 05:40 on 11 May 1942, U-558 fired a torpedo at Bedfordshire, missed, and fired a second, which scored a direct hit and sank her immediately. All 37 men aboard were killed. A 38th crewman, a young stoker named Sam Nutt, had been detained at Morehead City by local police and narrowly missed boarding the ship for her last patrol.
  On 14 May, the bodies of two seamen were discovered by a Coast Guardsman on the shores of Ocracoke Island. Their British uniforms offered the first indication that Bedfordshire may have met her end, and the U-boat menace was presumed to be responsible. Her fate was confirmed the following year after U-558 was sunk, resulting in the capture of Kapitänleutnant Krech and his ship's diaries.
caption: Commemorative plaque at British Cemetery, Ocracoke Island
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