Warilda
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The Warilda was a passenger ship put into service in 1912 by the Australian shipping company Adelaide Steamship Company , which was initially used as a troop transport during World War I and as a hospital ship from 1916 . On August 3, 1918, the Warilda was sunk in the English Channel by a German submarine , killing 123 people.
The ship
The 7713 GRT steamship Warilda was built at the William Beardmore and Company shipyard in Dalmuir and launched on December 5, 1911. The 125.64 meter long and 17.28 meter wide ship could reach a speed of 16 knots (29.6 km / h) and was operated by the Adelaide Steamship Company, which was based in Adelaide , in passenger traffic from the west to the eastern coastal areas of Australia .
She had two sister ships that were built at the same shipyard: the Wandilla (7,785 GRT, 1912), which fell victim to an Allied air raid near Tobruk on September 10, 1942 , and the Willochra (7,784 GRT, 1913), which fell on December 18 1929 sank after a collision with the Algonquin of the Clyde-Mallory Line in New York Harbor . The three steel-built ships each had a chimney, two masts, two propellers and were equipped with passenger accommodation for 231 passengers in the first, 120 in the second and 72 in the third class.
From 1915 the ship was used as a troop transport. On October 8, 1915, the Warilda in Brisbane took the 9th Battalion of the 10th Reinforcements and on October 10 in Sydney the 1st Infantry Battalion of the 10th Reinforcements on board and brought them to Egypt . Also on November 8, 1915, she entered the Australian city of Liverpool and took the 1st Brigade of the Australian Imperial Force on board. On October 15, the Warilda stopped in Fremantle and then cast off for Sues , where the troops disembarked on November 5, 1915.
On May 25, 1916, Tunneling Companies and two reinforcement units embarked in Melbourne and on June 1, 1916 in Fremantle, another Tunneling Company embarked on the Warilda , which were deposited on July 18 in Plymouth . In June 1916 the steamer was taken over by the British Admiralty and converted into a hospital ship.
Sinking
On Friday, August 2, 1918, the Warilda ran with 801 people on board under the command of Captain James Sim in Le Havre for a crossing to Southampton . These included several hundred wounded, around 200 crew members and 89 nurses and medics. In the early hours of August 3, between 1:30 a.m. and 2 a.m., she was hit by a torpedo from UC 49 , 32 nautical miles southwest of the Owers Banks off the southern tip of Selsey Bill . UC 49 was a German submarine of the type UC , which was under the command of Oberleutnant zur See Hans Kükenthal .
The torpedo struck the rear of the engine room and killed several machinists. The lights went out immediately. The behavior of the wounded soldiers during the evacuation of the ship was described by eyewitnesses as "heroic", as they neither pushed nor complained. The women on board were placed in the first lifeboats despite protests that they would be disembarked in front of the patients . A lifeboat, which included six women, hit another boat when it was launched and overturned before it could touch the surface of the water.
The force of the explosion caused a large leak , causing the hmat warilda quickly filled with sea water and a large flip side accepted. The Warilda was shot at even though it was clearly marked as a hospital ship. The vessel dropped to the position of 50 ° 10 ' N , 0 ° 13' W . Of the 801 people on board, 123 were killed in the sinking. Captain Sim survived and was then awarded the Order of the British Empire by King George of Great Britain .
The wreck of the Warilda lies with a list of 45 degrees to port at a depth of 50 meters. It is still largely intact.