Sidney Bernstein, Baron Bernstein would help the new Allies, Britain and America, to understand each other. He read and advised on early drafts of "Mrs. Miniver" (1942), the film starring Greer Garson as the heroic mother of a wartorn British family, which MGM made after a meeting of MGM executives with Bernstein in Hollywood. As the invasion of France loomed, Bernstein brought his friend Alfred Hitchcock back from Hollywood to Britain to work on two short documentary films for the post-invasion French audience. As the war wound to its close, Bernstein heard the first reports of extermination camps, visited Belsen himself, and was determined
SS Empire Miniver with scrap iron, sailed from Hampton Roads, Virginia, on 28 June for Halifax. After arriving there on 2 July, "West Cobalt" sailed the next day in Convoy HX-55 for Liverpool. On the night of 15/16 July, "West Cobalt" dropped astern of the convoy and was last sighted at 01:00 by British merchant ship "Loch Don". "West Cobalt" continued on, however, and reached Liverpool independently on 18 July. Soon transferred to the Ministry of War Transport, the newly renamed ship, now named "Empire Miniver", was assigned to Andrew Weir & Co. of London for operation. She sailed from Liverpool in her