Sidi Bel Abbès (ship, 1929)
.jpg) |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
The Sidi Bel Abbès (I) was a passenger ship put into service in 1929 by the French shipping company Société Générale de Transport Maritimes (SGTM), which served as a troop transport during World War II from September 1939 . On April 20, 1943, the ship was sunk by a German submarine 60 miles off the Algerian coast, killing 834 of the 1,287 crew members and troops on board.
The ship
The 4,392 GRT passenger and cargo ship Sidi Bel Abbès was built at the Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson shipyard in Low Walker ( Tyne and Wear ) for the French shipping company Société Générale des Transports Maritimes, founded in 1865 and based in Le Havre . This shipping company operated a passenger and freight service from Marseille , which was the home port of the ships, primarily to Algerian port cities such as Algiers , Oran and Bejaia , but also to South America and Italy .
The 112.2 meter long and 15.3 meter wide ship was laid on March 25, 1929 at Swan Hunter and was launched on September 5, 1929. The Sidi Bel Abbès , which had two masts, two chimneys and two propellers , was built for the main route from Marseille to Algeria. On November 27, 1929, she left for her maiden voyage . After ten years in civil trade, the Sidi Bel Abbès was requisitioned on September 17, 1939 as a troop transport . On December 17, 1939, on instructions from the Armement Militaire des Bâtiments de Commerce (AMBC) , a cannon was installed at the bow and stern .
On April 20, 1943, the Sidi Bel Abbès was on a journey from Casablanca to Oran. On board were 1,287 people, including 105 crew members, 275 French officers and soldiers and 907 Senegalese riflemen . She traveled with the Liberty ship James W. Denver and the freighter Michigan (both under the American flag) as a convoy UGS-7. On the morning of April 20, when the convoy was about 60 miles west of Oran, it was attacked by the German submarine U 565 (Kapitänleutnant Wilhelm Franken).
The Sidi Bel Abbès was hit by a torpedo at 6.47 a.m. in compartment No. 2. The detonation of the explosive device caused the loaded ammunition to explode. Shortly afterwards, a second torpedo struck the boiler room. The ship sank ten miles north of the Habibas Islands (position 35.59N / 1.25W) in a short time with a high loss of life. Of the 1287 men on board, 834 were killed, including 25 of the 41 French officers, 77 of the 234 French soldiers, 662 of the 907 Senegalese, eight of the ten ship's officers and 62 of the 95 common crew members. The 453 survivors were picked up by the armed British tugs Stella Carina and Foxtrot and the British anti-mine vehicle Felixstowe and brought to Oran. The Michigan was also hit and sank.