The 8,841 GRT steamship Kashmir was built by Caird & Company in Glasgow for P & O's passenger and freight service from England to India and the Far East. She was the last to be launched of six sister ships built by Caird & Company and Cammell, Laird & Company, measuring around 9,000 GRT and commissioning in 1914 and 1915. The others were the Khiva (II) (1914), the Khyber (I) (1914), the Kalyan (1915), the Kashgar (II) (1914) and the Karmala (I) (1914).
The 146.30 meter long and 17.77 meter wide ship had a chimney, two masts and two screws and was propelled by two four-cylinder quadruple expansion steam engines with an output of 7,000 PSi and a speed of 14 knots. The passenger accommodations were designed for 78 first class passengers and 68 second class passengers. The ship was completed and taken over on April 2, 1915, in the middle of the First World War . Nevertheless, the Kashmir was initially used in regular trade to the Far East and occasionally Australia .
In December 1916, the ship was then requested for the war effort and used from then on for troop transports in the Mediterranean . On October 6, 1918, in rough seas and poor visibility near Islay off the west Scottish coast, she collided with the Otranto , another former passenger ship that had been converted into a troop transport. The Kashmir , which came from New York and was en route to the Clyde , and the Otranto , which had several hundred US soldiers on board, could both make out land and turned towards each other. The bow of the Kashmir bored into the port side of the Otranto , which drifted, stranded and broke. 351 American soldiers and 80 British crew members were killed. The Kashmir was badly damaged but remained buoyant and was towed to the Clyde. The accident was the worst convoy accident in the First World War.
In March 1919, the Kashmir was returned to P&O and resumed passenger traffic. In April 1932 it was sold to the Japanese demolition company Mitshwa Shoji Kabushiki Kaisha in Osaka . It arrived there on July 30, 1932 and was then scrapped.
.jpg)
