Arkadia (ship, 1931)
 The New Australia
|
||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
The passenger ship Arkadia was built 1930-1931 and ran on 17 March 1931 as the Monarch of Bermuda from the stack .
history
Luxury liner Monarch of Bermuda
At the end of the 1920s, the British shipping company Furness, Withy ordered two luxury passenger ships for three-week pleasure trips between New York and Bermuda from the Vickers-Armstrongs shipyard in Walker-on-Tyne, an eastern suburb of Newcastle upon Tyne . The two ships, Monarch of Bermuda and Queen of Bermuda , were intended for use by the Furness Bermuda Line .
The first of the ships, the 22,424 GRT Monarch of Bermuda , was launched on March 17, 1931 and served the shipping company on the intended route until the outbreak of war in 1939. The ship had space for 799 passengers in 1st and 31 passengers in 2nd class. The two ships were among the first to have their own toilets in each cabin. They enjoyed an excellent reputation, which was reflected in the nickname "the millionaires ships", and were particularly popular with honeymooners .
When the American cruise ship Morro Castle burned out off the coast of New Jersey on September 8, 1934 , the Monarch of Bermuda was involved in rescuing the passengers.
Troop carrier Monarch of Bermuda
When the Second World War broke out in 1939, both ships were drafted by the Royal Navy for military service. The Monarch of Bermuda served as a troop transport from November 1939 to 1946 . In December 1939 she brought the first Canadian troops to Great Britain. On April 14, 1940, she was involved in the landing of Allied troops near Harstad , with which the battle for Narvik entered her land phase. In July 1940, secured by British and Polish warships , she brought art treasures from Wawel Castle in Krakow and gold supplies from the Bank of England from Greenock to Halifax . In the first week of May 1942, the ship took part in the landing of Allied troops on the island colony of Madagascar , which had been controlled by the Vichy government . In early December 1942, British troops brought it to Oran , which had been occupied a few weeks earlier as part of Operation Torch . During Operation Husky , the Anglo-American invasion of Sicily , the ship landed troops on the island on August 17, 1943. After the war ended, the ship brought Allied soldiers back to Britain and overseas, and in 1946 it carried its most unusual cargo when it brought to Canada so-called “war brides”, young women who had married Canadian soldiers stationed in Britain during the war years.
On May 24, 1947, the ship burned out while preparing for re-use as a passenger ship in the shipyard in Hebburn-on-Tyne. It was declared a total loss and advertised for scrapping.
New Australia emigrant ship
The British Ministry of Transport acquired the damaged ship, which went to Southampton under its own power and was repaired there at Thornycroft and converted into an emigrant ship. Two of the previously three chimneys were removed. After the conversion, the ship was 176.63 m long and 23.4 m wide and measured at 20,256 GRT. It now had room for 1,600 passengers in a single class. After completion of the conversion, the ship was named New Australia and was used under the ownership of the Ormos Shipping Company and the management of the shipping company Shaw, Savill & Albion from 1950 to 1957 with emigrants on the Australian route. On August 15, 1950, the New Australia ran from Southampton on her first trip with European emigrants to Sydney . The return journey went via Japan , from where the ship brought troops of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF) back to Great Britain. Troops were also carried on the way home on later journeys: In April 1951, the ship brought former soldiers of the Dutch colonial power in the Dutch East Indies , who were no longer wanted on the Moluccas after the Indonesian War of Independence , and their family members from Java to the Netherlands ; In 1952 and 1953 it brought Australian soldiers to Korea ; and in 1956 it brought Australian troops to Korea and Malaya .
Less known and less glorious was the fact that among the “emigrants” there were several groups of so-called “orphans” who were sent to Australia as “emigrants” without the consent and knowledge of their mostly still living parents. At least three times - 1951, 1953 and 1954 - such groups of children were on board the New Australia .
When the New Australia brought Australian troops and their family members to Malaya again in September 1957, it collided with an oncoming tanker in the Torres Strait between Australia and New Guinea . Nobody was killed and the damage to the two ships was not severe. Nevertheless, the New Australia was decommissioned in late 1957 and offered for sale.
Passenger ship Arkadia
In January 1958, the ship was purchased by Greek Line , which renamed it Arkadia and registered it with its subsidiary Arcadia Steamship Co. The new owners had the ship converted and modernized by Blohm & Voss in Hamburg for the scheduled passenger service between Western Europe and Canada. The bow damaged in the collision was bent and lengthened so that the ship was 179.58 m long after the conversion. The ship, now measured at 20,259 GRT, offered space for 150 first class passengers and 1150 tourist class passengers. In May 1958 the Arkadia set sail for its first voyage from Bremerhaven to Montreal ; the last trip was in August 1966. In between it was remodeled again in 1961 at Blohm & Voss, with the passenger capacity reduced to only 50 in first class, but increased to 1,337 in tourist class. The measurement changed to 20,648 GRT.
In November 1966, was Arkadia in the River Fal north of Falmouth launched , and on December 8, 1966, the hit Arkadia finally abort Valencia one.
Web links
- History as the Monarch of Bermuda , accessed February 7, 2013
- History as New Australia , accessed February 7, 2013
- Story as Arkadia , accessed February 7, 2013
Individual evidence
- ↑ The sister ship Queen of Bermuda , completed in 1933, was 30 cm longer and, at 22,575 GRT, also slightly larger.
- ↑ Photo: Australian troops leaving New Australia , March 21, 1953 in Pusan, Korea ( Memento of the original from May 5, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from August 31, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
