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SS Ariguani showing damaged received during the
Second World War | 1940 Vessels Bayano II, Camito, Ariguani and the Cavina were all requisitioned by the British war office and transferred to war service. The Bayano II, Ariguani and the Cavina all survived to operate again under peacetime conditions. Eight company vessels were sunk in 1940. The Charges II, Carare, Samala I, Sulaco I, Matina II, Casanare, Mopan and the Aractaca II. On the 9th November 1940, the British Ministry of Food, without any prior consultation, decided upon a total prohibition of banana imports. Lord Woolton, the minister concerned, claimed that it was better to have a good supply of one fruit rather than a poor supply of several. The fruit that was chosen was the orange. Some of the company’s vessels were now used in bringing refrigerated cargoes of meat, eggs and bacon from Halifax and New York, instead of maintaining their existing trade. |
| 1941 On 11 January 1941, Fyffes London headquarters in Bow Street, received a direct hit during a German bombing raid on London. Thirteen members of staff who were on fire-watching duty at the time were killed outright together with nine members of the public who, had just left Drury Lane Theatre, and had asked and been granted permission to use the firm’s air raid shelter. The SS Camito, which had been requisitioned in 1940 and become an armed boarding vessel, was torpedoed and lost in May 1941. s.s. Tetela in dry dock showing damage received in
September 1941 | 
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