Carnarvon Castle
 The Carnarvon Castle with its original two chimneys before rebuilding 1937/38
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The Carnarvon Castle was a passenger ship put into service in 1926 , which was used for the British shipping company Union-Castle Line in passenger and mail traffic between Great Britain and South Africa . She was the company's first motor ship and was not taken out of service until 1962 after 36 years of service. During the Second World War she served as an auxiliary cruiser.
Passenger ship
The 20,063 gross registered tonnes (GRT) motor ship Carnarvon Castle was built by Harland & Wolff in Belfast , Northern Ireland and was launched on January 14, 1926. The ship, 192.23 meters long and 22.4 meters wide, had two funnels, two masts and two propellers . Up until then she was the largest ship on the Union-Castle Line and her first motor ship. On board there was space for 310 passengers in the first, 275 in the second and 266 in the third class.
The Carnarvon Castle was registered in London and left Southampton on July 16, 1926 on her maiden voyage to South Africa. She headed for the ports of Port Elizabeth , Port Natal , East London and Cape Town . She kept this route until the war.
In 1937/38 the ship was completely renovated. It got a new bow , new machines and the two chimneys were replaced with a new one. As a result of the modifications, which strengthened the elegant lines of the ship, the hull was lengthened to 201.47 meters and the tonnage increased to 20,122 GRT / 12,089 NRT. On July 8, 1938, the Carnarvon Castle resumed its passenger traffic. Two months later, she set a new record on the route to Cape Town, which was maintained until 1954: she covered the distance in 12 days, 13 hours and 36 minutes.
Second World War
On September 8, 1939, was Carnarvon Castle of the Royal Navy requested and in Simon's Town (South Africa) in an armed merchant cruiser converted (Armed Merchant Cruiser). Their armament consisted of eight 6-inch cannons, two 3-inch anti-aircraft cannons and six machine guns . Their war crew was recruited from members of the Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) and the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR). The new commanding officer was Captain George Bridges Lewis. The conversion was completed on October 9, 1939.
The Carnarvon Castle's first operational area was the South Atlantic , where it was part of the South Atlantic Station from October 1939 to April 1940. There it was supposed to counteract the attacks by German auxiliary cruisers and merchant sturgeon cruisers on the local merchant shipping. In May 1940 she switched to the Freetown Escort Force, where she stayed until June 1941. In May 1940, Captain Henry Noel Marryat Hardy was given command, who commanded Carnarvon Castle until April 1942.
On December 5, 1940, about 700 nautical miles east of Montevideo, there was a battle with the German auxiliary cruiser Thor , in the course of which Carnarvon Castle received 27 shell hits. The Thor , which itself remained undamaged, also shot down two torpedoes , but both of them missed their target. There were four dead and 28 injured on board Carnarvon Castle . She docked in Montevideo, where the repairs were made. She was later used again in the South Atlantic and from May 1943 also in the West Africa Command under General Sir George Giffard. It was also equipped with radar . From November 1943, the Carnarvon Castle was used as a troop transport between Great Britain and the USA in the service of the Ministry of War Transport (MoWT).
Late years
In March 1947, the former luxury liner was returned to the Union-Castle Line after almost eight years. In the first post-war years, the Carnarvon Castle served as an emigration ship with 1,283 berths until it was modernized again in 1949/50. This increased the volume again to 20,141 GRT. It resumed its old passenger and postal service in June 1950 until it was withdrawn from service in 1962 and scrapped the following year.
Web links
- Illustrated summary of the history of the ship (including a three-masted sailing ship of the same name) at bandstaffregister.co.uk
- Illustrated summary of the ship's history ( Memento from June 1, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) at allatsea.co.za
- Chronology of Carnarvon Castle in World War II at uboat.net