The Mooltan (II) was an ocean liner put into service in 1905 by the British shipping company Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O), which was used in passenger and mail traffic from Great Britain to India and Australia . On July 26, 1917, the Mooltan was sunk by a German submarine in a convoy off the coast of Tunisia . Except for two people, all 554 crew members and passengers were saved.
The 9,621 GRT, steel-built steamship Mooltan is part of the series of P & O's M-Class passenger and mail ships. Between 1903 and 1911 a total of ten more or less identical ships of this class were put into service. The sister ships of the Mooltan were the Moldavia (1903), the Mongolia (1903), the Marmora (1903), the Macedonia (1904), the Morea (1908), the Malwa (1909), the Mantua (1909), the Maloja ( 1911) and the Medina (1911). Six of these ten ships were sunk by German torpedoes or sea mines during World War I , killing a total of 250 people. The last one to be scrapped was the Mantua in Shanghai in 1935 .
The Mooltan was built at the Caird & Company shipyard in Greenock, Scotland , and was launched there on August 3, 1905. The 158.5 meter long and 17.68 meter wide ship had two funnels, two masts and two propellers . It was powered by a quadruple expansion steam engine that developed 1164 nominal horsepower (NHP) and allowed a top speed of 18 knots. The Mooltan could carry 348 first class passengers and 166 second class passengers. The ship was completed on October 4, 1905 and then ran out on its maiden voyage to Bombay . In 1906 the Mooltan was relocated to the London - Colombo - Melbourne - Sydney route. In 1911 she took part in the Coronation Fleet Review on the occasion of the coronation of the British King George V in Spithead .
On July 26, 1917, the Mooltan with 554 passengers and crew on board was torpedoed by the German submarine UC 27 (Oberleutnant zur See Gerhard Schulz) on the way from Malta to Marseille about 53 nautical miles north-northwest of Cape Serrat . The ship drove in a convoy with two Japanese destroyers . The Mooltan sank (position 37.56N / 8.34E), but with the exception of two crew members, all persons on board were rescued by the accompanying destroyers. The Mooltan was the largest ship sunk by UC 27 .
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