Durban Castle
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The Durban Castle was a passenger ship put into service in 1938 , which was used for the British shipping company Union-Castle Line in passenger and mail traffic between Great Britain and South Africa . It served as a troop transport in World War II and was scrapped in Hamburg in 1962 .
The ship
The 17,388 gross registered tonnes (GRT) motor ship Durban Castle was built at Harland & Wolff in Belfast , Northern Ireland and was launched on June 14, 1938. On December 15, 1938, the 173.94 meter long and 23.29 meter wide ship was completed. The Durban Castle had a chimney, two masts , two propellers and three decks . She was with two eight-cylinder diesel engines powered by Harland & Wolff, who could to accelerate the ship to a speed of 18.5 knots. It had three double-ended boilers.
As usual with the Union-Castle Line, the Durban Castle was registered in London , sailed under the British flag and was built for the shipping company's Round Africa service to South and East Africa . It also heralded the new tradition of the Union-Castle Line of naming its ships after nonexistent castles in major African cities (see also Capetown Castle or Pretoria Castle ).
In September 1939, after a few months in civilian passenger and mail traffic , the Durban Castle was converted into a troop transport . After the occupation of Greece in April 1941 (see Balkan campaign (1941) ), King George II of Greece fled with his family first to Egypt and from there to Durban . The royal family then sailed from Durban to Great Britain on board the Durban Castle . In 1942 she was converted into a landing ship for the infantry and took part in the Africa campaign as such in November of the same year . In July 1943 the 41st Marine Command brought them ashore in Sicily and later other troops in Salerno and Anzio . On August 15, 1944, troops landed in Cannes to take part in the liberation of the south of France .
In 1946 the Durban Castle was returned to the Union-Castle Line. During the renovation of the ship, the gun emplacements for their anti-aircraft cannons were removed shortly afterwards . In July 1947 the ship resumed its commercial passenger service. On March 28, 1962, the Durban Castle ran for the last time in London. In the following month it was sold to the Eisen und Metall GmbH in Hamburg for demolition .
The "porthole murder"
In the fall of 1947, Durban Castle made headlines around the world when the 21-year-old actress Eileen "Gay" Gibson from London disappeared from the ship without a trace. The exact circumstances could never be fully clarified due to the lack of eyewitnesses. In the early morning hours of October 18, 1947, when the ship was 150 miles off the West African coast, Captain Arthur Patey sent security guard Frederick Steer to Gibson's first class cabin, number 126 on the B deck, at 2:58 a.m. In the morning several calls had come in quick succession over the service bell from the cabin.
Instead of Gibson, Steer found 31-year-old steward James Cramb in the cabin. Captain Patey ordered a physical examination of the steward by the ship's doctor Dr. Griffiths, who found scratch marks on his arms and wrists. In Griffiths' opinion, these injuries acted like defenses. In court, Cramb initially testified that he had not been in Gibson's cabin. He later changed his statement, saying he brought Gibson a drink at her request at around 2:00 a.m. Traces of blood were also found on a pillow. These were of type 0. Since Cramb had blood type A, it was assumed that it was the blood of Gay Gibson. James Cramb testified during the trial that he and Gibson had consensual sex. In the meantime she died of a heart attack and in his panic he had her body disappeared.
Based on the circumstantial evidence, he was charged with attempted rape and the murder of Gay Gibson. He went to the actress on the pretext of bringing her a drink in her cabin and then tried to sexually abuse her. When she struggled, he strangled her and threw the body through the porthole of her cabin into the ocean. This earned the case in the press the name “ The Porthole Murder ” (German: “The porthole murder”). Gibson had apparently been able to ring the service bell during the fight to call for help. Despite an extensive search, her body was never found. Cramb was sentenced to death by Winchester Court but was paroled in 1959. In the course of the process, which met with great media coverage, several other women spoke up who said they had also been molested or abused by Cramb on board the Durban Castle . After further sexual assault, Cramb was later sentenced to life imprisonment .