Porthos (ship)
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The Porthos was a passenger ship put into service in 1915 by the French shipping company Messageries Maritimes , which was built for the transport of passengers, cargo and mail from Marseille to the Far East . The ship served as a troop transport during World War II until it was sunk near Casablanca ( Morocco ) on November 8, 1942 .
The ship
The 12,633 GRT steamer Porthos was built at the Forges et Chantiers de la Gironde shipyard in Bordeaux and was launched on January 24, 1914. She was the identical sister ship of the Athos (12,644 GRT), which was built by Ateliers et Chantiers de France and was launched in July 1914. After the 14,368 GRT André Lebon , which entered service in 1915, the Athos and the Porthos were the largest ships of their shipping company. They were built for the route Marseille - Port Said - Suez - Colombo - Saigon - Da Nang - Haiphong .
The Porthos was 161.7 meters long and 18.8 meters wide and was equipped with nine steam boilers . The two triple expansion steam engines, which drove two propellers , developed 9,000 horsepower and enabled a speed of 17 knots. The ship had a deadweight capacity of 9,340 tons and a displacement of 18,570 tons. In the passenger quarters there was space for 112 passengers in the first, 96 in the second, 90 in the third class and between 390 and 1,000 in the intermediate deck.
On November 28, 1915, the Porthos set out on her maiden voyage from Marseille to the Far East. From November 1915, she was under the service of the French government for use in the First World War . In 1919 it was returned to Messageries Maritimes and from then on used in service from Marseille to Japan . She later steamed again from Saigon to Haiphong.
In September 1939 the Porthos was intended for the transport of troops to Madagascar . On the night of 23 to 24 May 1941, she took 18 survivors of the freighter Rodney Star of the British Blue Star Line , which had been sunk shortly before Freetown with the loss of 58 lives. On November 7, 1942, the Porthos entered Casablanca in a French convoy . The following day, November 8, 1942, the ship was shot at and sunk by the American battleship Massachusetts near Casablanca during the Allied invasion of French North Africa . There were two dead and 24 missing. In 1945 the wreck was recovered and scrapped.
The Porthos played in the novel " L'amant " (German: "The Lover") by the French writer Marguerite Duras from 1984 a role.
Web links
- Brief description in The Ships List
- History and photos from the Porthos' service time
- The steamer Porthos on the French Lines website
- Porthos in the wreck database
- A photo of the ship