Poland (ship)
 The identical sister ship Mohegan
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The Poland was a passenger and cargo ship put into service in 1898, which was in service in the first few years under the name Manitou for the Atlantic Transport Line and from 1902 as Poland under the Belgian flag was used by the Red Star Line in the Antwerp-Philadelphia service has been. During the First World War , the ship served as a troop transport again under the name Manitou until it returned to the Red Star Line in 1921 and was again called Poland . The steamer was scrapped in Italy in 1925.
Atlantic Transport Line
The Poland was actually built for Furness, Withy & Co. in West Hartlepool and was to be put into service under the name Victoria with space for 120 first class passengers. The 6,849 GRT steamship was launched on July 31, 1897 at the Furness, Withy & Co. shipyard and was fitted with a triple expansion steam engine from T. Richardson & Sons ( Hartlepool ) that increased the ship to 13 knots (15 miles / h) could accelerate.
Before or during the completion of the ship, it was bought by the US shipping company Atlantic Transport Line , which needed replacements for their steamers used by the US government in the Spanish-American War . In addition to the Victoria , the four sister ships were also bought and renamed. The Victoria became the Manitou , the Alexandria the Menominee , the Cleopatra the Mohegan ¸ the Winifreda the Mesaba (I) and the Boadicea the Marquette (all 1898). For each of the ships, the Atlantic Transport Line paid £ 140,000 (in monetary value at the time ).
The Victoria and Boadicea had been chartered by Atlantic Transport Line before they were bought. The larger than life bronze quadriga designed by Frederick William MacMonnies for the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn arrived on board the new Manitou in New York in August 1898 . On September 4, 1898, the ship left New York for the first voyage after the takeover.
Red Star Line and the First World War
When the Minneapolis and Minnehaha were put into service in 1900 , the older ships were no longer needed and some were sold. The Manitou went to the Red Star Line in 1902 , which it renamed Poland and used on the Antwerp - Philadelphia route from June 1902 to 1914 . The Poland has now been provided with a radio system. On a trip to Philadelphia in 1906 broke at Land's End , the propeller shaft of the ship, so that Poland cancel the trip and to the port of Falmouth had broken in.
After Antwerp was captured by the Germans in October 1914, the port of departure was moved to Liverpool . The number of lifeboats has been doubled. Together with four other ocean liners, the Poland , which was now called Manitou again, transported Canadian troops from Gaspé to Great Britain in October 1914 . It is reported that the bear, the AA Milne for his acclaimed work of Winnie the Pooh (in the original Winnie-the-Pooh inspired) as the mascot of the Canadian soldiers on board of Poland came to Europe. This bear, whose name was Winnie, was given to the London Zoo and for years was a great attraction, especially among children. Christopher Robin Milne, son of Alan Alexander Milne, was allowed to go to the bear's cage and give him milk.
From 1915 the Manitou served permanently as a troop transport under the command of Captain John McMath, OBE , who died on July 16, 1918 at the age of 46 and was buried in Port Said . On April 17, 1915, the ship was stopped by the Turkish torpedo boat Demir Hissar about ten nautical miles off the island of Skyros in the Aegean Sea . After an officer on board the Demir Hissar demanded that the Manitou be evacuated , a total of three torpedoes were shot down, none of which hit his target. The Demir Hissar then turned away. A short time later the torpedo boat ran aground while fleeing from the British cruiser Doris near Chios .
On May 30, 1917, the steamer escaped a submarine, probably U 38 under Max Valentiner . At the time, she drove through the waters northeast of Tobruk accompanied by the two sloops Berberis and Snapdragon . In December 1917 the ship steamed together with the Mandala (Bj. 1915) of the British India Steam Navigation Company , the Volumnia (Bj. 1892) of the German shipping company Kosmos and the Chandra in a convoy from Malta to Marseille . The group escorted by the destroyer Nereid and the sloops Lychnis and Cyclamen . The U 40 submarine of the Austrian Navy under the command of Liner Lieutenant Johann Krsnjavi attempted an attack on the convoy, but the distance was too great.
On April 18, 1918, the ship was targeted by the German submarine UC 27 off the Tunisian coast , but again the distance between the ships was too great. On June 17, 1918, a more dramatic incident occurred when the ship's convoy was attacked on a voyage from Marseille to Alexandria north of Cape Bon by U 64 under the command of Lieutenant Robert Moraht. The Manitou drove in a convoy with the steamship Kandy (built in 1904) under the protection of the Lychnis and the cruiser Partridge . The submarine torpedoed the Manitou , which U 64 then rammed. The Kandy was also hit and sank. U 64 was submerged two water bombs of Lychnis made and when emerging from the Partridge rammed. U 64 sank after heavy fire with the loss of 37 of its 42 crew members.
Only a few months later, on November 4, 1918, another convoy, which the Manitou had joined, was attacked on the southern tip of Sardinia by UB 68 under the command of First Lieutenant Heino von Heimburg . The Leyland Line's steamer Kingstonian (built in 1901) was torpedoed and damaged, but it was aground in the Bay of Carloforte . The Sloop Berberis dropped three depth charges on UB 68 . In 1921 the ship was returned to the Red Star Line and was renamed Poland . The passenger capacity was increased to 1,100 third class passengers. In 1922 the Poland was put into service with the White Star Line and used together with the Vedic (built in 1918) on their route from Hamburg via Southampton to Quebec and Montreal . After only three trips it was launched, sold for demolition for £ 18,000 and broken up in Italy in 1925.