Anchises (ship)
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The Anchises (III) was a 1911 passenger ship of the British shipping company Blue Funnel Line , which carried passengers and cargo from Great Britain to Australia . On February 28, 1941, the Anchises, northwest of Ireland, was bombed and sunk by German long-haul aircraft, killing 15 passengers and crew.
The ship
In 1908, the Blue Funnel Line ordered its first three passenger ships for their passenger service to Australia from the Workman, Clark & Company shipyard in Belfast . They were the double screw steamers Aeneas (I) (10,049 GRT), Ascanius (II) (10,048 GRT) and Anchises (III) (10,046 GRT), each with a size of just over 10,000 GRT . According to the criteria of the Lloyd's Register of Shipping , the three steamers were class A. They established themselves as pioneers on the Australian route.
The 150.3 meter long and 18.3 meter wide passenger and cargo ship Anchises had a chimney, two masts and two propellers and was powered by a triple expansion steam engine that developed 640 hp and allowed a speed of 14 knots. The three ships were each designed to carry 288 passengers in first class. The Anchises was launched on January 12, 1911 as the last of the three ships. On March 10, 1911, the steamer was completed and shortly thereafter left on its maiden voyage to Australia.
After the outbreak of the First World War , the Anchises was used as a troop transport like her sister ships . It first brought Australian troops to Europe under the registration number A68 in August 1915. Until April 1920 she commuted regularly as a troop ship between England and Australia. On September 23, 1918, she was chased by a submarine in the Atlantic and put under fire. But she was able to repel the submarine. In September 1922 the Anchises returned to civil passenger traffic on the Glasgow – Liverpool – Brisbane route.
Sinking
On February 27, 1941, the Anchises was under the command of Captain David Warren James with 182 passengers and crew on board on a journey along the north-west coast of Ireland. About 180 nautical miles west-northwest of Arranmore Island on the coast of County Donegal , the ship was attacked by German maritime reconnaissance aircraft of the Focke-Wulf Fw 200 ("Condor") type of Kampfgeschwader 40 . Three crew members were killed in the bombing. The ship was badly damaged by the attack and was then unable to maneuver. 134 passengers and crew, including five women and two children, left the ship in six lifeboats .
Only a small remaining crew of 33 men remained on board, trying to steer the ship to Liverpool after all. While the crew on board the Anchises was waiting for a salvage tug , the ship was again attacked by German aircraft on February 28. Captain James realized that the Anchises could no longer be saved and ordered the final abandonment of the ship. After the corvette Kingcup arrived at the scene of the accident, the last crew members remaining on board were supposed to cross over to the Kingcup in the last lifeboat . Due to the heavy seas at the time, the bow of the corvette was thrown against the Anchises and crushed the boat. Captain James, the seaman John Sinnott and the ship's baker Charles Quirk were killed. Shortly afterwards the badly battered steamer sank to position 55.30N / 13.17W. The survivors were taken on board the Kingcup .
One of the lifeboats drifted in the stormy weather, spending six days on the open sea and in stormy weather. Of the initial 20 people in the boat, several died over the course of the days, including the stewardess Minnie Beatrice Apperson († 58). After six days, the boat was found by the destroyer Assiniboine and the remaining survivors were recovered. A total of 15 people were killed in the two attacks and in the lifeboat.