Annam (ship, 1899)
.jpg) The structurally identical sister ship Indus
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The Annam (I) was a 1899 posed in service passenger ship of the French shipping company Messageries Maritimes , the passenger and postal traffic from Marseille to the Far East was used. In 1904 and again in 1912 the ship was renamed. On November 27, 1916, the ship was sunk by a German submarine in the eastern Mediterranean , killing 17 people.
The ship
The 6,350-ton, from steel -built steamship Annam was at the shipyard Chantiers de Navals La Ciotat in the southern French port city of La Ciotat built and ran on 6 November 1898 by stack. The 142-meter-long and 15.5-meter-wide ship was the most recently completed of four identical sister ships that were built for passenger and mail traffic from France to the Far East and were supposed to sail from Marseille via Saigon , Shanghai and Hong Kong to Yokohama . The other three were the Laos (I) (1897), the Tonkin (1898) and the Indus (II) (1898). The ships each had two funnels, two masts and two propellers .
The Annam was powered by two triple expansion steam engines that developed 9,500 hp and allowed a top speed of 18 knots. The ship had a deadweight capacity of 4,075 tons and a displacement of 9,850 tons. A total of 12 steam boilers were installed in the boiler rooms . The passenger accommodations were designed for 185 passengers in the first, 86 passengers in the second and 77 passengers in the third class. First-class amenities included a smoking room, a two-story dining room, and a music room with balconies.
On 24 September 1899, ran Annam in Marseille for its maiden voyage from. In 1904, Messagieres Maritimes bought a 6,075 GRT ship from the Danish shipping company Det Østasiatiske Kompagni , which was also named Annam . The first Annam was therefore renamed Tourane on June 24, 1904 to avoid confusion. In 1912 the ship was modernized and again got a new name, Karnak . In the course of the renovations, the passenger capacity also changed: 192 first class, 110 second class, 92 third class. On June 9, 1913, she left for her first voyage under the new name to Alexandria . After the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the Karnak was used as a troop transport in addition to its passenger and postal service .
Sinking
On Monday, November 27, 1916, the Karnak cast off under the command of Captain Victor Schwab with 90 passengers on board in Valletta ( Malta ) for the onward journey to Thessaloniki . A short time after departure, she was sighted and torpedoed by U 32 about 60 nautical miles south of Malta . U 32 was a German U-boat of the type U 31 , which was under the command of the 29-year-old Lieutenant Kurt Hartwig on patrol .
The Karnak hit sank within 15 minutes (position 35 ° 7 ′ N , 15 ° 25 ′ E ). 17 crew members were killed. The survivors were picked up by the British hospital ship Letitia and brought ashore in Alexandria on November 30th . The surviving crew members returned to Marseille on board the sister ship Lotus .
Web links
- A comprehensive overview of the Annam on the Messageries Maritimes website
- The Annam in a blog on ships of the Messageries Maritimes
- Detailed technical and historical data as well as images (PDF file; 133 kB)
- Information about the sinking in the submarine database (with picture)
- Entry in the wreck database