Victoria (ship, 1931)
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Victoria (I) was a passenger ship put into service in 1931 by the Italian shipping company Lloyd Triestino , which was used in passenger and freight traffic between Italy and Egypt (and later India ). During the Second World War , the Victoria served as a troop transport for the Italian Ministry of War from June 1940 until it was sunk in the Great Syrte on the north coast of Libya by a British air raid on January 24, 1942 . 249 people were killed.
The ship
At the end of the 1920s, the Italian Lloyd Triestino needed a new, modern passenger ship for two reasons. On the one hand, they wanted to replace the two ships Vienna (7,357 GRT) and Helouan (7,367 GRT), which were put into service in 1911 and 1912 and accordingly out of date. On the other hand, they wanted to keep up with the new buildings of the competing company Società Italiana di Servizi Marittimi (SITMAR), the Esperia (11,398 GRT) from 1921 and the Ausonia (II) (12,955 GRT) from 1928. For these reasons, Lloyd Triestino ordered a 13,062 GRT motor ship from the Cantiere San Marco shipyard in Trieste with hull number 782. After the names Alexandrina and Cleopatra were rejected, it was named Victoria ("The Siegerin"). The original idea of an identical sister ship was dropped for economic reasons.
The keel of the 164.59 meter long and 21.33 meter wide Victoria was laid on May 3, 1930 and the launch took place on December 6 of the same year. Godmother was Donna Carolina Ciano, wife of the naval commander and politician Costanzo Ciano (1876–1939). On April 30, 1931, the ship left the shipyard for the first time on the way to the dry docks of Pula . On June 20, 1931 in the found Adria the trials held at which the ship a top speed of 23 knots reached (the four Sulzer - diesel engines of Fabbrica Macchine Sant'Andrea should have an average cruising speed of 20 knots guarantee). The following day, the Victoria was formally handed over to her owners.
The Victoria was one of the first ships designed according to the recommendations of the second version of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), which came into force in 1929 . The six deck high ship had a cellular double floor that extended the entire length of the ship. The hull was divided into eleven watertight compartments by means of bulkheads .
In addition, the Victoria was very luxurious. The public salons on the promenade deck were furnished by Gustavo Pulitzer and the Ducrot company from Palermo and provided with stained glass windows by the painter Pietro Chiesa . The ballroom of the Victoria was one of the first on board a ship provided with an air conditioning equipped. There were also luxury suites, bars and various lounges and verandas . The ship had four price categories: 1st class (239 passengers), II. Class (245 passengers), III. Class (100 passengers) and 4th class (82 passengers).
period of service
On June 27, 1931, the Victoria cast off under the command of Captain Giulio Mauri in Trieste on her maiden voyage to Alexandria (Egypt) with lively media interest and in the presence of a large crowd . Stopovers were made in Venice and Brindisi . The Victoria remained on this route until the SITMAR shipping company was dissolved in January 1932 as part of the restructuring of the Italian shipping companies and its fleet was transferred to Lloyd Triestino. From then on, the Esperia and Ausonia operated on the Trieste – Alexandria route, while the Victoria operated the express route from Genoa to Bombay via Naples , Port Said and Aden .
In 1935 the ship was overhauled for the first time in Genoa. First class received an outdoor swimming pool and the measurement increased to 13,098 GRT. From October 1935, Alexandria was included in the route as a stopover, as the Ausonia , which had called the port up until then, had recently been destroyed by a fire on board. Between January and April 1936, the Victoria replaced the Conte Rosso (18,017 GRT) of Lloyd Sabaudo on its route to Singapore , Hong Kong and Shanghai , while the Conte Rosso was temporarily used as a troop transport in the Italo-Ethiopian War . From June 1936 Shanghai and Massaua were integrated into their route.
On December 29, 1936, the Victoria left Genoa on a one-off special trip to Manila as part of the International Eucharistic Congress. She reached Manila on January 23, 1937. On November 20, 1939, at the end of her last civilian journey in peacetime, she entered Genoa.
War effort and sinking
On June 1, 1940, the Victoria took off on her first troop voyage in World War II . On June 25, 1940, she ran together with the Esperia with 437 troops and 2,775 tons of cargo on board for the first time in a convoy to Libya . On January 22, 1941, she carried out the first of a total of eight troop trips to Tripoli . From August 26, 1941, conversions were carried out in Taranto to increase the troop capacity of the ship.
After completing this work, the Victoria left Naples on January 22, 1942 as part of the T48 convoy for another troop voyage to Tripoli. The following afternoon there was an air raid by a British bomber , which initially did not seriously affect the ship. However, on the afternoon of January 24 at around 5:25 p.m., the Victoria was hit by a British air torpedo in the Great Syrte , a spacious bay on the north coast of Libya , which made the ship unable to maneuver. During the evacuation, the ship was hit a second time around 7 p.m. and then sank. 249 soldiers and crew members were killed.