President Doumer
.jpg) The identical sister ship Jean Laborde
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The Président Doumer was a 1935 passenger ship of the French shipping company Messageries Maritimes , which was used in the passenger and mail traffic from Marseille to the Far East . During the Second World War , the Président Doumer served as an Allied troop transport under the British flag until it was sunk north of Madeira by the German submarine U 604 on October 30, 1942 . 260 of the 345 crew members and soldiers were killed.
Passenger ship
The 11,898 GRT motor ship Président Doumer was built at the Société Provençale de Constructions Navales shipyard in the southern French port city of La Ciotat and was launched on January 22, 1933. The ship was named in honor of the former French President Paul Doumer , who had been assassinated the year before. The launch took place in the presence of Doumer's children and grandchildren. Alexandre Millerand was also present. The 159, 50 meter long and 19.5 meter wide passenger and mail ship had a flat wide chimney, two masts and two propellers . It was powered by two Burmeister & Wain diesel engines that developed 8100 hp and enabled a speed of 15 knots. 135 passengers could be carried in first class, 90 in second and 74 in third class. In an emergency, another 500 people could be taken on board.
The cabins and lounges were modern and elegant. The first class dining room stretched across the entire width of the ship and was spanned the full length of the room by a vaulted roof, through whose skylights a lot of daylight could penetrate the room. A bust of Paul Doumer was placed in the music room. The French artist Georges Paul Leroux contributed a decorative panel specially made for the ship with the title Tristan dans la forêt (“Tristan in the Forest”).
The Président Doumer was the last in service in a row of three identical sister ships . The other two were Jean Laborde (I) (11,414 GRT), commissioned in 1931, and Maréchal Joffre (11,732 GRT), commissioned in 1933 . On June 6, 1935, the President Doumer set out on her maiden voyage to Madagascar . Due to an engine failure, she had to make an unscheduled stopover in Aden on June 21 . On October 1, 1937, she took the wrecked British ship Carrington Court in tow, 200 miles from Suez . In 1938 the hull , which had been black until then , was painted white. In addition, new engines were installed, so that the power increased to 10,200 hp and the speed to 19 knots.
Troop transport in World War II
On September 3, 1939, the day France declared war on the German Reich , the French Navy requested the Président Doumer to be deployed as a troop transport . After completing the corresponding renovation work, the President Doumer drove from Brest to Scapa Flow on April 18, 1940 . She formed convoy FP-2 with the two troop ships Flandre and Djenné, which were escorted by the French destroyers Tartu , Chevalier-Paul and Milan . The convoy left Scapa Flow on April 24th to bring the 27th Chasseurs Alpins half-brigade to Norway . The convoy was now additionally secured by the British destroyers HMS Codrington and HMS Fame . On April 28, 1940, the ships reached their destination and brought the soldiers ashore in Salangen and Bogen near Narvik .
On July 19, 1940, the Président Doumer was handed over to the British Ministry of War Transport (MoWT) as a troop transport in Ismailia on the Suez Canal . The ship's captain, Jean Paul Mantelet (a former pilot on the Suez Canal) as well as 74 crew members and 20 members of the French Navy were allowed to stay on board. The rest of the crew was brought back to France on board the Messageries Maritimes' Athos (II) passenger ship . Management was transferred to the British Bibby Line .
Sinking
On October 16, 1942, the President Doumer ran under the command of Captain Jean Paul Mantelet in Freetown (Sierra Leone) for a crossing to Great Britain. On board were 252 crew members, 30 DEMS artillerymen (Defensively Equipped Merchant Ship) and 63 soldiers (a total of 345 people) as well as ordinary cargo, including 50 tons of palm kernels. It was the largest of the 36-ship convoy SL-125. Between October 26 and October 31, 1942, the convoy was attacked successively by a total of eight German submarines. 12 ships were sunk. On October 30th at 9:29 p.m., the Président Doumer was torpedoed 150 miles northeast of Madeira by the German submarine U 604 (Kapitänleutnant Horst Höltring).
The weather was very bad at the time. Panic broke out on board; some of the lifeboats were cut loose and shattered. The small Norwegian freighter Alaska under the command of Captain Berge Mevatne was tasked with rescuing the castaways. In their panic, many jumped off board the Prédient Doumer and floated in the water. Two crew members of the Alaska jumped into the water and tried to secure as many castaways as possible with ropes. This failed because of the stormy weather. The Président Doumer dropped shortly after the torpedo at the position 35 ° 8 ' N , 16 ° 44' W . Captain Mantelet, 173 crew members, 23 artillerymen and all 63 soldiers were killed.
78 crew members and seven artillerymen survived. 29 of them were picked up by the British corvette Cowslip (Lt. Commander Frederick Granger) and the other 56 by the Alaska . While the Alaska was still busy with the rescue, she was hit by a torpedo from U 510 shortly after midnight on October 31 . The Président Doumer survivors panicked again and the Alaska crew had their hands full preventing them from storming the lifeboats. The Alaska remained buoyant and reached Lisbon on November 11th. The Cowslip brought her rescued people ashore in Gibraltar .