HMHS Salta
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The HMHS Salta (His Majesty's Hospital Ship) was a hospital ship operated by the British shipping company Union-Castle Line . Originally commissioned in 1911 as a passenger ship for a French shipping company, the Salta served as a hospital ship under the British flag from 1915 at the instigation of the British Admiralty , until she ran into a sea mine laid by a German submarine on April 10, 1917 off Le Havre and sank . 130 crew members, nurses and nurses were killed.
history
The 7,284-ton steamship Salta was on the shipyard Société Nouvelle of Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée (FCM) in La Seyne-sur-Mer on the Cote d'Azur built and ran on 13 March 1911 by the stack . The passenger and cargo steamer was 137.8 meters long, 16.3 meters wide and had a maximum draft of 9.6 meters. The ship had two funnels, two masts and two propellers. The two triple expansion steam engines developed 7,000 hp and enabled a maximum speed of 14 knots (25.9 km / h).
The Salta was built for the French shipping company Société Générale de Transport Maritimes (SGTM) based in Marseille , which was founded in 1865 . In July 1911 the ship was completed and handed over to its owners. In February 1915, the British Admiralty chartered the steamer and placed it under the management of the Union-Castle Line. From then on, the ship served as a hospital ship with 461 patient beds and was painted in the usual white paint with green stripes and the red cross.
Downfall
On Monday, April 9, 1917, the Salta ran under the command of Captain Eastaway in Southampton for a crossing to Le Havre . She was traveling in a convoy escorted by several destroyers . In the early morning of April 10, a French patrol boat discovered sea mines at the entrance to the port of Le Havre, whereupon all incoming ships were warned. The mines had been laid the day before by the German submarine UC 26 (Kapitänleutnant Matthias Graf von Schmettow).
At 11.20 a.m. on April 10, the Salta reached the port entrance of Le Havre and stopped the machines. A patrol boat ordered the convoy to follow it to the destroyer Diamond , whose crew checked the Salta and established its identity. Then the ship was allowed to enter the port and the Salta steamed into the canal towards Le Havre. When Captain Eastaway was heading north, he received a radio message from the Diamond that his ship was now approaching the point at which the mines had been sighted. A surviving officer later reported that due to the bad weather, Eastaway did not want to enter the port without a pilot and therefore wanted to let the other ships through first.
When the danger was recognized, the course was changed again, but at 11.43 a.m. the ship ran into a mine half a mile north of the whistle buoy at the entrance to the dam. A massive explosion ripped a hole in the close to the stern engine room and the cargo hold no. 3. Large amounts of seawater poured into the ship's hull, which in less than ten minutes with a strong list to starboard went down. Although help was on site immediately, the rescue operation was hampered by the heavy seas and strong winds. Of the 205 people on board, 79 crew members, 42 members of the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) and nine of twelve nurses from Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAIMNS), including head nurse Evelyn Maud Dawson, perished. The British patrol boat P-26 came alongside the Salta to help, but also ran into a mine and sank.
Very few of the 130 fatalities were recovered after the sinking. 24 of them were on the Ste. Marie Cemetery in Le Havre. There is also a memorial there to commemorate the missing. The wreck of the Salta is believed to be at 49 ° 32 ′ 8 ″ N , 0 ° 2 ′ 18 ″ W at a depth of 138 meters.
See also
- HMHS Anglia : British hospital ship; ran into a German sea mine on November 17, 1915 and sank (134 dead)
- HMHS Britannic : British hospital ship; ran into a German sea mine on November 21, 1916 and sank (30 dead)
- HMHS Dover Castle : British hospital ship; sunk by a German submarine on May 26, 1917 (7 dead)
- HMHS Glenart Castle : British hospital ship; sunk by a German submarine on February 26, 1918 (153 dead)
- HMHS Llandovery Castle : British hospital ship; sunk by a German submarine on June 27, 1918 (234 dead)