Transylvania (ship, 1925)
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The Transylvania (II) was a 1925 passenger ship of the British shipping company Anchor Line , which was used as a passenger and mail steamer on the North Atlantic route from Great Britain to the USA . From October 1939 she served with the tactical identification F-56 as an armed auxiliary cruiser (Armed Merchant Cruiser) until she was sunk by a German submarine on August 10, 1940 on the north coast of Ireland . It is one of the 15 largest ships sunk by German submarines during World War II .
The ship
The Transylvania was laid down in 1919 at the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company in Govan near Glasgow . However, she was only launched on March 11, 1925 as a 16,923 GRT steam turbine ship . This Transylvania was the successor to the ship of the same name which was commissioned in 1914 and which was sunk by a German submarine during World War I. The Transylvania had a sister ship , the Caledonia (IV) (17,046 GRT). The 174.74 meters long and 21.43 meters wide Transylvania had two masts , three chimneys and was powered by steam turbines that acted on two propellers and allowed a cruising speed of 16 knots. 279 first class passengers, 344 second class passengers and 800 third class passengers could be carried.
On September 12, 1925, the Transylvania ran out on her maiden voyage on the Glasgow - Moville - New York route . On November 22, 1928, she stayed for 15 hours next to the wrecked German freighter Herrenwijk and launched lifeboats and rafts . With the help of the East Asiatic Company's Estonia , 13 men from the Herrenwijk were rescued, but 13 more drowned. On March 28, 1929, the Transylvania ran aground in the fog at La Coeque Rocks, ten miles west of Cherbourg . In Cherbourg she disembarked her passengers and then cast off to the Clyde , where the repairs were made. The steamer was not operational again until June 1929. In May 1930, Mary Anne MacLeod , future mother of Donald Trump , emigrated from Scotland to the USA on board the Transylvania .
In October 1930 there was a change to first class, tourist class and third class, followed in March 1936 by the change to cabin class, tourist class and third class. In the 1930s, the Transylvania was mainly used for cruises , for example in the summer of 1935 to Bermuda and from 1937 to 1939 to the West Indies . On August 18, 1939, the Transylvania left for its last voyage on the Glasgow – Moville – New York route.
In World War II
On September 7, 1939, the passenger ship was requested by the Royal Navy and converted into an armed auxiliary cruiser . The conversion was completed on October 5, 1939. The Transylvania was assigned to the 10th Cruiser Squadron and served in the Northern Patrol , which was responsible for the naval blockade against the German Empire between the Orkney Islands and the Faroe Islands . Their armament consisted of eight 152-mm guns and two 76-mm guns.
On August 10, 1940 at around 1 a.m., Transylvania was hit 35 nautical miles west of Inishtrahull Island north of Malin Head on the coast of County Donegal in Northern Ireland at position 55º50'N, 08º03'W by a G7e torpedo of the German underground Boots U 56 (Kapitänleutnant Otto Harms) hit. The torpedo hit the port side directly behind the engine room . The Transylvania was with 336 crew and military personnel under the command of Captain Francis Nigel Miles, OBE . She had left the Clyde the day before and was on her way to a patrol on the Denmark Strait .
U 56 had only discovered the convoy 15 minutes before the attack. Since the submarine had no more torpedoes, it turned. The Transylvania that was hit was towed by another ship. When they flip side accepted and the stern began to decline, ordered Captain Miles from 3:00 in the morning to leave the ship. In the stormy weather some of the lifeboats capsized. To 04:25 that went Transylvania under. Three officers and 33 lower ranks were killed. The 300 survivors were picked up by the Ashanti tribal class destroyer (Commander William Gronow Davis, RN, DSC).