Orcades (ship, 1937)
 The identical sister ship Orion
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
The RMS Orcades (II) was a 1937 passenger ship of the British shipping company Orient Steam Navigation Company , which was used in passenger and mail traffic from Great Britain to Australia until the outbreak of World War II . She was sunk on October 10, 1942 in the South Atlantic by the German submarine U 172 , killing 48 people. She was the third largest ship sunk by a German submarine during World War II .
The ship
The 23,456 GRT steam turbine ship Orcades was built at the Vickers-Armstrong shipyard in the English port city of Barrow-in-Furness . The 201.2 meter long and 25 meter wide ship had a maximum draft of 9.1 meters and was designed to carry a total of 1,068 passengers. It was named after an ancient name for the Orkney Islands. The Orcades had a sister ship, the Orion (23,371 GRT), which was built at the same shipyard and was completed in 1935. They were the largest ships built for the Orient Steam Navigation Company before World War II. The Orcades was powered by a set of six Parsons turbines that operated on two propellers . The interior of the two ships was designed by the New Zealand designer and architect Brian O'Rorke.
The Orcades was launched on December 1, 1936 and was completed in July 1937. On October 11, 1937, she arrived in Fremantle at the end of her maiden voyage , a four-week cruise . On March 7, 1938, she broke the record on her sister ship Orion for the fastest crossing from Adelaide to Melbourne at the end of her second voyage to Australia. She covered the distance in 26 hours and 53 minutes at an average speed of 20.75 knots.
The civil use of the ship was short-lived. In 1939 the Ministry of War Transport (MoWT) requested the Orcades as a troop transport . In the following years, the Orcades carried out their troop trips almost always without escort ships because of their high speed, which earned them the nickname "Lone Wolf" (lone wolf).
Sinking
On October 10, 1942, the Orcades was under the command of Captain Charles Fox on another voyage from Suez to England. The day before, she left Cape Town with 1,065 people and 3,000 tons of cargo. There were a total of 318 crew members, 711 passengers and 36 gunners on board. On the morning of October 10, the ship, which as usual was not escorted and only lightly armed, was sighted by the German submarine U 172 under the command of Lieutenant Carl Emmermann .
At 10:28 a.m., the Orcades was hit by two torpedoes about 280 nautical miles northwest of Cape Town . Since the ship made no signs of sinking quickly, Captain Fox decided to return to Cape Town. However, in the following two and a half hours, another five torpedoes were released onto the ship, one of which was a dud and did not explode. 13.00 went Orcades with list to starboard at the position 31 ° 51 ' S , 14 ° 40' O below. 28 crew members, 18 passengers and two gunners died. Captain Fox, 289 crew members, 693 passengers and 34 gunners were rescued by the Polish merchant ship Narwik under the command of Captain Zawarda and put ashore in Cape Town on October 12.
After the Empress of Britain (42,348 GRT) of the Canadian Pacific Line and the Strathallan (23,772 GRT) of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company , the Orcades was the third largest ship that fell victim to a German submarine in World War II. Captain Charles Fox was awarded the Lloyd's War Medal for Bravery at Sea and was named Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).