Dunvegan Castle (ship)
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The Dunvegan Castle (II) was a passenger ship put into service in 1936 , which was used for the British shipping company Union-Castle Line in passenger and mail traffic between Great Britain and South Africa . During the Second World War , the Dunvegan Castle served as an auxiliary cruiser until it was sunk by a German submarine on August 27, 1940, southwest of Ireland .
The ship
The 15,007 GRT motor ship Dunvegan Castle was built at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast , Northern Ireland . She was the structurally identical sister ship of Dunnottar Castle (15,007 GRT), which was built at the same time by Harland & Wolff and was launched on January 25, 1936. The launching of Dunvegan Castle followed two months later, on March 26, 1936. She was the second ship in the history of the shipping company to bear this name. The first Dunvegan Castle was built by Fairfield Shipbuilders for the Castle Line in 1896. When this merged with the Union Line in 1900, the first Dunvegan Castle went into the fleet of the new Union-Castle Line. The second Dunvegan Castle was completed on August 18, 1936 and went on its maiden voyage the following month .
The ship was 174.53 meters long and 21.92 meters wide and had a chimney, two masts and two propellers . It was designed by two diesel engines of Burmeister & Wain driven, the rendered 11,200 bhp (brake horse power) and enabled a speed of 17 knots. The passenger accommodations were designed for 258 first class passengers and 150 tourist class passengers. In the front area of the upper deck was the first class dining room with 236 seats, followed by the galley, which was followed by the tourist class dining room with 242 seats.
The ship also had a hairdressing salon, an on-board shop, lounge and smoking salon of the tourist class (protective deck), library, lounge and smoking salon of the first class (upper promenade deck ), reception hall, information office, kindergarten, wind-protected play deck, hospital ward (lower promenade deck) and various locations for sunbathing and doing sports (boat deck and sun deck ). Most of the 132 first class cabins each had one or two beds and almost all of them had a porthole . However, only twelve of them had their own bathroom. The tourist class cabins were equipped with two or four beds.
War effort
After only three years in passenger and mail traffic to South Africa, the Dunvegan Castle was requested by the British Admiralty for military service on September 7, 1939 and converted into an armed auxiliary cruiser (Armed Merchant Cruiser). On December 20, 1939, she began her new service. From then on she served in the South Atlantic patrol service as an escort for ship convoys to Freetown .
On August 11, 1940, the Dunvegan Castle in Freetown put under the command of Captain Hubert H. Ardill for a crossing to Belfast . She drove as an escort for the convoy SL-43 and had 277 crew members on board. On the evening of August 27, 1940, the ship was attacked about 120 nautical miles southwest of Cape Clear Island off the southern tip of Ireland by the German submarine U 46 (Kapitänleutnant Engelbert Endrass ). The first fire took place at 9.47 p.m. Since the ship continued to sail despite the hit, Endrass fired further torpedoes at 10:12 p.m. and again at 10:51 p.m., which hit the engine room and just before the bridge . The Dunvegan Castle caught fire, lost speed and sank the following day at position 54.05N / 11.00W.
Of the 277 people on board, three officers and 24 lower ranks were killed in the sinking. Twelve men were injured. The 250 survivors, including Captain Ardill, were taken on board by the destroyer Harvester and the corvette Primrose and brought to Scotland . After the auxiliary cruiser Carinthia with 20,277 GRT, the Dunvegan Castle was the second largest ship sunk by U 46 .
Web links
- Brief summary in The Ships List (at the bottom)
- Detailed, illustrated description of the sister ships Dunvegan Castle and Dunnottar Castle
- The Dunvegan Castle in the submarine database
Coordinates: 55 ° 3 ′ 0 ″ N , 11 ° 0 ′ 0 ″ W.