Actually the numbers of ships that made it through, those too damaged to continue, and those which were sunk do not add up in the various reports I've had access to. I suppose this is not too surprising.

For example, Terribus identifies 7 merchant ships that were sunk and 8 others that were damaged, which adds up to 15. The BBC source (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/pda/A894332?s_id=4) summarized 8 merchant ships sunk, 6 so badly damaged they returned (or were towed) to whatever port they could, and another 4 merchant ships that made the complete voyage (leaving 2 merchant ships unaccounted for out of the entire convoy of 20); 4 of the 9 naval escorting force were also forced to return to port for major repairs.

The BBC source above concludes:

"The worst disaster of the war within Island waters was the fate of Convoy CW9".

I suppose one can view this "incident" as "There was a job to do and you did it." and the loss of life (ignoring the wounded) only amounted to "20 men." There was indeed a larger war and larger battles. But the reason this convoy deserves closer attention is that it failed in its mission of delivering coal, and it failed badly. The fact that the experience was not repeated in subsequent convoys, I would assume had something to do with the British learning from this "disaster," rather than minimizing it. Minimizing such "disasters" in my opinion does not credit either the sailors who died or those who survived.

The lyrics could use some more work in terms of historical accuracy, but we also should credit the singers, Barry Finn and Neil Downey, for attempting to clarify the historical context of the 20-year old poem that one of their friends had composed.

Charley Noble