Royal Edward
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The Royal Edward was a British passenger ship put into service in 1908 under the name Cairo , which was taken over by the British Admiralty in 1914 and sunk by a German submarine on August 13, 1915 in service as a troop transport in the eastern Aegean . Of 1,637 men on board, 935 died, although the numbers in the various sources also differ.
The ship
The 11,117 GRT steamship was built at the Fairfield Shipbuilders yard in Govan near Glasgow and was launched there in July 1907 under the name Cairo . The Cairo and her sister ship Heliopolis (11,146 GRT) were built for the British-registered shipping company Egyptian Mail Steamship Company and used in their passenger and mail service from Marseille to Alexandria . The 160.36 meters long and 16.35 meters wide Cairo was powered by three steam turbines that acted on three propellers and enabled a maximum speed of 19 knots. In the passenger quarters there was space for 344 passengers in the first, 210 in the second and 530 in the third class. The steamer was equipped with electrically operated elevators, a radio system and apparatus for tracking down submarines .
In January 1908 the Cairo was completed and shortly thereafter began service. Since the mail service from Marseille to Alexandria was not profitable for the Egyptian Mail Steamship Company, the Cairo and Heliopolis were withdrawn from circulation and put up again in 1909 . In 1910 the shipping company ceased operations and the Cairo and Heliopolis were transferred to the Canadian Northern Steamship Company, a Toronto-based subdivision of the Canadian Northern Railway, which was founded in the same year .
The two ships were renamed Royal Edward (ex Cairo ) and Royal George (ex Heliopolis ) and converted for North Atlantic traffic. For example, the hulls of both ships have been reinforced in order to be better equipped against the rough seas and stormy weather in the North Atlantic . The new owners touted the two ships as "the fastest steamers to Canada" with "unmatched passenger cabins in all classes". On May 12, 1910, the Royal Edward ran for its first voyage for the Canadian Northern Steamship Company from Avonmouth to Quebec and Montreal .
In September 1914 she made her last trip on this route. Prominent passengers on the North Atlantic route during this time included Albert Gray, 4th Earl Gray and Sir Robert Borden . In the same year, the Royal Edward and the Royal George were taken over by the British Admiralty and used as troop transports.
Sinking
On July 28, 1915, the Royal Edward ran under the command of Lieut. Commander Peter M. Wotton, RNR, with 1,367 officers and soldiers at Avonmouth. The majority of the men were supplies for the British 29th Division , but there were also members of the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) among them. The destination of the trip was the Gallipoli peninsula . On the evening of July 28th, the Royal Edward passed The Lizard Peninsula and on August 10th she arrived in Alexandria. The Royal George had already arrived in Alexandria the day before from Devonport . The next destination was the port city of Moudros on the Greek island of Limnos , a stopover on the way to the Dardanelles .
On the morning of August 13, 1915, the Royal Edward passed the British hospital ship Soudan , which was part of the Dodecanese island of Kandeloussa in the eastern Aegean , and was heading in the opposite direction. Oberleutnant zur See Heino von Heimburg on board his submarine UB 14 sighted the two ships. Since the Soudan was clearly recognizable as a hospital ship , von Heimburg let her sail away unmolested and instead concentrated on the Royal Edward about six nautical miles west of Kandeloussa . Von Heimburg had a torpedo fired shortly after 9 a.m. from a distance of about one nautical mile (two kilometers), which hit the Royal Edward in the stern . The ship sank over the stern within six minutes.
The crew of the Royal Edward still managed to send out a distress signal . The Soudan turned back and arrived at the scene of the accident around 10 a.m., where it rescued 440 men over the next six hours. Two French destroyers and several trawlers picked up a further 221 men. The authors James Wise and Scott Baron put the number of fatalities at 935 and attribute this high number to the fact that a rescue drill had just ended on board the Royal Edward and most of the men were below deck to stow their equipment. Commander Wotton was also among the dead. However, the numbers are debatable. Other sources give the number of deaths as 132 to 1,386 to 1,865. The exact number can no longer be determined.
On the evening of August 13 at around 9:30 p.m., the British hospital ship Devanha crossed the sinking site where life jackets, lifeboats, planks and other debris were floating. A memorial service was held on board the Devanha , attended by the entire crew.
Web links
- Some details about the ship in The Ships List
- ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: framework data in the Clydebuilt Ships Database )
- Entry of the Royal Edward on wrecksite.eu, the wreck database
- ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: picture gallery and collection of contemporary newspaper articles )