Indus (ship, 1898)
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The Indus (II) was a passenger ship put into service in 1898 by the French shipping company Messageries Maritimes , which was used in passenger and mail traffic from Marseille to China and Japan and later South America . In 1903 it was renamed Magellan . On December 11, 1916, the ship was sunk in the Mediterranean by a German submarine , killing 36 people.
The ship
The 6,357 GRT steamship was built at the Chantiers Navals de La Ciotat shipyard in the southern French port city of La Ciotat and was launched on August 29, 1897. It was baptized in the name of Indus . The 141.95 meter long and 15.5 meter wide passenger ship was the second of four identical sister ships that were built for passenger and mail traffic from France to the Far East and were to sail from Marseille via Saigon , Shanghai and Hong Kong to Yokohama . The other three were the Laos (I) (1897), the Tonkin (1898) and the Annam (I) (1899). The ships each had two funnels, two masts and two propellers .
The Indus was powered by two triple expansion steam engines that developed 9,500 horsepower and allowed a top speed of 19 knots. The ship had a deadweight capacity of 4100 tons and a displacement of 9,850 tons. The passenger accommodations were designed for 148 passengers in the first class, 71 passengers in the second and 81 passengers in the third class. On 27 March 1898, ran Indus in Marseille from on her maiden voyage. On November 16, 1899, she arrived in Port Said with the invited guests for the inauguration of the statue of Ferdinand de Lesseps designed by Emmanuel Frémiet , which was erected the following day at the entrance to the Suez Canal .
With the commissioning of new ships, the four sister ships were planned on new routes one after the other in 1903 and 1904 and all of them were renamed. The Indus became Magellan , the Laos became the Amazon , the Tonkin became the Lotus and the Annam became the Karnak . The Magellan went from there from Bordeaux to Buenos Aires and ran on March 6, 1903 from the first crossing on the new route. On August 31, 1910, the ship's rudder broke and it had to be towed back to Buenos Aires. She operated this service until the mail contract of the Messageries Maritimes for the South American route expired in July 1912. The contract was not renewed, instead the Compagnie de Navigation Sud-Atlantique was awarded the contract for the South American postal service. Then the Magellan returned to the China route.
Sinking
After the beginning of the First World War , the Magellan carried not only passengers and cargo but also troops. Their main task, however, remained the maintenance of a regular mail connection on their previous route. In March and April 1915, for example, she brought soldiers ashore to the Dardanelles for the Battle of Gallipoli . On December 11, 1916, the ship was in a convoy traveling back from Shanghai to Marseille when it was torpedoed ten nautical miles south of the Italian island of Pantelleria by the German submarine U 63 (Kapitänleutnant Otto Schultze ) and was at position 36 ° 36 ′ N , 12 ° 10 ′ E sank. Three French and seven Arab crew members and 26 passengers were killed.
The survivors were picked up by the steamer Sinaï (4,623 GRT) and the torpedo boat Sagaie in the same convoy . The Sinaï , which also belonged to the Messageries Maritimes, was sunk by U 63 shortly afterwards . In this case, passengers and crew could be rescued completely. The survivors of both ships were brought from Malta to Marseille by a sister ship of the Magellan , the Lotus . Also on board were the survivors of another sister ship, the Karnak , which was sunk by U 32 near Malta on November 27, 1916 .