Australia (ship)
.jpg) The structurally identical sister ship Armand Béhic
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The Australien was a passenger ship for the French shipping company Messageries Maritimes , which entered service in 1890 and was built for the transport of passengers and cargo from Marseille to Australia . On July 19, 1918, she was sunk in the Mediterranean by a German submarine, killing 20 civilian passengers and crew members.
The ship
The 6,376 GRT steamship Australia was built in 1889 at the Chantiers Navals de La Ciotat shipyard in the port city of La Ciotat in the south of France . The passenger and cargo ship was 147.01 meters long, 15 meters wide and had a side height of 7.35 meters. The Australia had two chimneys and three masts . The triple expansion steam engine, which powered a single screw, developed 7,000 hp and allowed a speed of 17.5 knots (32.4 km / h). The ship had a deadweight capacity of 5,000 tons and a displacement of 10,300 tons.
The Australien was built for passenger and cargo traffic to Australia and New Caledonia . It could carry 172 passengers in first, 71 in second and 103 in third class. It was launched on May 26, 1889 and was completed in February 1890. On March 3, 1890, she sailed from Marseille on her maiden voyage . On a trip in July 1895, she had the painter Paul Gauguin on board. In 1903 the hull was painted white.
The Australien was the second in a series of four identical sister ships that were built for passenger and cargo traffic to Australia . The others were the Polynésien (1890), the Armand Béhic (1892) and the Ville de La Ciotat (1892). All four ships were about 6,400 GRT in size, had two funnels, a four-bladed propeller and three masts with the rigging of a barque . The four ships were in direct competition with four new liners of the British shipping company Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company on the same route, the Victoria (1887), Britannia (1887), Arcadia (1888) and Oceania (1888). The Armand Béhic was the only one of the group of four to survive the naval war in World War I and was scrapped in 1924. The Ville de La Ciotat was sunk by U 34 on December 24, 1915 off Cape Tenaro (81 dead) and the Polynésia on August 10, 1918 off Valletta by UC 22 (19 dead).
Sinking
On Friday, July 19, 1918, the Australien was on a voyage from Marseille to Port Said . In addition to the crew, 951 passengers were on board. 26 nautical miles northeast of Cape Bon on the coast of Tunisia , it was torpedoed at around 6.30 p.m. by the German submarine UC 54 under the command of Oberleutnant zur See Otto Loycke. Most people were able to leave the ship before it sank, but 17 crew members and three passengers were killed.