Samoa (ship, 1943)

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The Samoa was a Liberty freighter , a general cargo ship of the type EC2-S-C1 built as part of the US Emergency Shipbuilding Program . It was given to Great Britain as part of the lend lease agreement during its construction and was mostly used in convoy traffic in the Mediterranean during World War II . After the war she continued until 1958 under various names under the British flag , then until its dismantling in 1971 by repeatedly changing a flag .

Construction and technical data

The ship was on July 18, 1943, the Bethlehem Fairfield Shipyard in Baltimore ( Maryland , USA) with the Maritime Commission Hull Number 1766 for the US War Shipping Administration laid the keel and was already running four weeks later, on August 14, with the name Matthew Brush from the stack . Immediately afterwards, it was lent to Great Britain as a bare boat charter under the land lease agreement and then completed under the new name Samoa .

The Samoa was 129.81 m long and 16.76 m wide and had a draft of 8.16 m . It was measured at 7,314 GRT and had a load capacity of 10,778 tdw . It had five cargo holds and 12 cargo booms (1 × 50 t; 1 × 15 t; 10 × 5 t). The machinery consisted of a triple expansion steam engine from Worthington Pump & Machinery Corp. and two water tube boilers , developed 2500 psi and produced a speed of 11 knots over one screw . The crew numbered 43 men.

fate

Second World War

The Samoa was put into service for the British Ministry of War Transport on August 29, 1943, only six weeks after her keel was laid, under the management of Alfred Holt & Co. in Liverpool . It steamed on September 2, 1943 from Baltimore to New York , on September 12 to Hampton Roads , and then from there on September 15 with the convoy UGS.18 to Gibraltar and Port Said , where it arrived on October 13. Then she drove on alone via Suez to Aden and from there with the AP.50 convoy (October 25 - November 3, 1943) to Bandar Abbas in the Persian Gulf . Solo trips to Basra and between Basra and Abadan followed . In December she made a trip from Basra via Bandar Abbas and Bandar-e Dschask to Karachi and from there back via Aden and Suez to Port Said. From there she ran in January 1944 with the MKS.37 convoy to Gibraltar and then with the MKS.37G convoy to Liverpool, which was reached on February 2.

On March 3, 1944, the Samoa drove with the combined convoy OS.70KM & KMS.44G from Liverpool back to Gibraltar, and for the next eight months it was almost non-stop with convoys in the Mediterranean (Gibraltar, Augusta , Naples , Taranto , Bari , Brindisi , Marseille , Algiers , Oran , Port Said). In November 1944 she drove to England via Casablanca and from there to New York in December 1944 / January 1945, but returned to the Mediterranean in February with convoy UGS.74. Her new area of ​​activity was now India : via Suez and Aden she went to Bombay in March , and then she ran to Colombo , Madras , Calcutta and finally Kochi until the end of May . This was followed by a long journey in June from Kochi to Durban in South Africa , in July to Buenos Aires and Montevideo and in August 1945 back via Cape Town and Durban to Colombo.

Post-war years

After some time as a trailer , the ship was sold in 1947 by the Ministry of Transport to the British China Mutual Steam Navigation Co., which renamed it Eurymedon (III). The shipping company was a subsidiary of Alfred Holt & Co. or the Blue Funnel Line, which had managed the ship since its commissioning. In April 1952, the ship, again within the shipping group of Alfred Holt & Co., was transferred to Glen Line and renamed Glenlogan . In 1957 it was transferred again within the Alfred Holt Holding , this time to the Blue Funnel Line , and renamed Eurymedon again.

In 1958 it was sold to the Etolika Cia shipping company. Nav. SA in Piraeus . The ship was named Angelos and sailed under the Panamanian , shortly afterwards under the Costa Rican and from 1959 under the Greek flag. In 1964 the ship was sold to the shipowner Michael Amin Araktingi in Beirut , renamed Mimosa and under the Lebanese flag for Araktingis Midsutra Shipping Ltd. started up in London. As early as 1966 the old ship was passed on again, now to the Alplata Shipping Corp., registered in Monrovia ( Liberia ), was renamed Alplata and under the Liberian flag by Flemar Ltd. managed in Montevideo ( Uruguay ). The next year the ship was sold again, this time to the Cypriot María de Lourdes Shipping Co., who renamed it Anka and had it managed by Carapanayoti & Co. in London.

On June 25, 1971, ran Anka to Bilbao , where it was scrapped.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ EC = Emergency Construction.
  2. ↑ Ship details, with photo and side elevation
  3. ↑ Alfred Holt & Co. had also bought the Glen Line and the Shire Line in 1935, and as a result ships within the Alfred Holt Holding were often between the four shipping companies Glen Line, Shire Line, Blue Funnel Line and China Mutual Steam Navigation Co. transferred. ( http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/lines/glen.shtml )
  4. ↑ Glen Line, at The Ships List

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