Letitia (ship, 1925)
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The Letitia (II) was a 1925 commissioned passenger ship of the British shipping company Anchor-Donaldson Ltd., which was used in passenger and mail traffic between Great Britain and Canada . During the Second World War she served as a troop transport and later as a hospital ship . It was sold to New Zealand in the late 1950s and broken up in Scotland in 1960 .
Passenger ship
The 13,475 GRT steam turbine ship Letitia was built at the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company in Govan near Glasgow . She was the structurally identical sister ship of the Athenia (13,465 GRT), which was launched on January 28, 1922 at the same shipyard. The Athenia was best known for being sunk by a German submarine in 1939. Both ships were 163 meters long, 20 meters wide and each had a chimney, two masts and two propellers . The Letitia was the second ship of the Anchor Donaldson Ltd. to bear this name. The first Letitia entered service in 1912 and sank near Halifax on August 1, 1917 .
The second Letitia was powered by six steam turbines designed by Fairfield on the Brown-Curtis system, had an output of 9,000 shaft horsepower (WPS) and had a top speed of 16 knots. It had two double-ended and three single-ended kettles . The passenger accommodations were designed for 516 passengers in the cabin class and 1023 in the third class. The ship was launched on October 24, 1924 and left Glasgow on April 24, 1925 on its maiden voyage to Montreal .
The Letitia from then on went together with the Athenia from Liverpool to Quebec and Montreal in the summer months and to Halifax and Saint John in the winter season, when the Saint Lawrence River was frozen over . This was a joint venture in collaboration with the Cunard Line . In 1927 the ship was overhauled for the first time. From then on, 298 cabin class passengers, 310 tourist class passengers and 964 third class passengers could be carried. In 1935, the Anchor Line was dissolved, and the subsidiary Anchor-Donaldson Ltd. was established from its cooperation with Donaldson Line in 1916. was created. The Donaldson Line took over most of the shares and renamed itself Donaldson Atlantic Line.
World War II and later years
On September 9, 1939, the Letitia was requested by the British Admiralty for use in World War II and converted into an armed auxiliary cruiser (Armed Merchant Cruiser). On November 6, 1939, she began her service under the identification number F16. In the first few months she was mainly used on the North Atlantic with the Halifax Escort Force. In January 1940 she was the escort for the convoy HX 15 from Halifax to Liverpool.
She spent most of 1940 with the Northern Patrol . She later briefly belonged to the Bermuda and Halifax Escort Force until she joined the North Atlantic Escort Force in May 1941. From 1941 the Letitia served as a troop transport until it was badly damaged in use in 1943. After repairs in the USA, she was used by the Canadian government as a hospital ship . For this purpose, it was able to accommodate 1,000 patients and a staff of 200. In the months immediately after the end of the war, the ship repatriated Canadian soldiers to their homeland. In contrast to her sister ship, the Letitia survived the Second World War and was sold in 1946 to the British Ministry of War Transport (MoWT), which administered British transport . She was still managed by the Donaldson Atlantic Line.
On November 20, 1946, during the crossing from Halifax to Liverpool, she collided on the River Mersey with the British steamship Stormont , which sank. As a result of the collision, the ship had to go to Birkenhead in dry dock in order to be able to have repairs carried out on the stern . The Letitia was extensively repaired on the River Clyde in 1947 and re-equipped for use as a troop ship. The MoWT named the Letitia in Empire Brent order. In July 1948 she made her first troop trip to India and the Far East . It was first used in 1950 in the emigration traffic from Glasgow to Sydney , which peaked in the years after the Second World War. From June 1951 to January 1952 she was converted at Barclay, Curle and Company for service as an emigration ship. The capacity of the third class increased to 1088 people and the tonnage increased to 13,876 GRT.
The ship was renamed for the new service in Captain Cook and set out on February 5, 1952 in Glasgow for its first voyage to New Zealand via the Panama Canal . She was chartered by the New Zealand government for this service. In April 1955 the Captain Cook was put back on the transatlantic route Glasgow – Montreal, but after seven crossings on this route she returned to New Zealand service in October 1955. In the port of Wellington the ship was badly damaged by a fire on board in 1957, but was able to return to Great Britain on its own and was repaired there.
The Letitia was eventually bought by the New Zealand government. It made its 25th and final voyage in February 1960 and was hung up in Falmouth upon arrival in Glasgow . It was then sold to British Steel for demolition . On April 29, 1960, the decommissioned ship arrived in Inverkeithing (Scotland), where it was demolished by Thomas W. Ward Shipbreakers Ltd. was scrapped.