S.S. "GASCON" (2)

Builder:                 Harland & Wolff, Belfast.

Yard No.               304

Official No.           106907

Tonnage:             6,278 gross,  3,975 net.

Dimensions:       430 x 52.2 x 29 feet

Engines:              Triple expansion by builder.  508 h.p., 2,750 i.h.p.  = 11.5 kts

Passengers:       60 1st., 87 2nd. & 95 3rd. class

Reefer space:     7,665 cu. ft.

Launched:           25th August 1896

Completed:         February 1897

Refit:                    

Notes:                   Hospital ship in 1st WW.

Laid Up:                January 1926, Southampton Water.  Re-commissioned September 1926.

Laid Up:                May 1928 with GAIKA in East India Dock.

Scrapped:             September 1928 by T.W. Ward.

Information from 'Union-Castle, a fleet history' by Peter Newall

                                                                                                                                                                        Union-Castle post card

From B&C Review, April 1965

The "Gascon" at Anzac

by Captain G.H. Griggs

                                                                                                                                       skectch made by Captain Griggs

Throughout Australia and New Zealand the twenty-fifth of April is kept as a Public Holiday (Anzac Day) to commemorate the landing of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps at Gallipoli in the first World War.

This is the fiftieth Anniversary and I recall that memorable day and the months that followed as clearly as if it had all happened yesterday.

Early in 1915 I was appointed Fourth Officer of the hospital Ship Gascon (Capt. W.F. Stanley) and we sailed with the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force for the island of Lemnos which is situated some sixty miles south -west of the entrance to the Dardanelles.

The night of the 24th April was calm, clear and moonlit and shortly before sunset we left the wonderful natural harbour of Mudros (which made an ideal base for operations) bound for the shores of Gallipoli.   It was a huge armada consisting of every type of vessel imaginable - battleships, cruisers, destroyers, troopships, storeships, trawlers, tugs and innumerable lighters and small craft - most of the warships and troopships with a string of these latter in tow.

We steamed dead slow and soon after midnight the moon set and we were about ten miles from our objective.   we crept slowly in towards the shore and arrived off Anzac about two hours before dawn.   No anchors were dropped and in complete silence and pitch darkness the troops were transferred to lifeboats and small craft and towed in towards the beach we could not yet see.   No signs from the Turks that our presence had been discovered, and the atmosphere became tense as dawn broke and the outline of the enemy coast became dimly visible.   First the heights of Sari Bair Ridge, which dropped almost sheer some nine hundred feet to the narrow strip of beach towards which we could now see the boats making with utmost speed.

Suddenly the Turks opened a terrific fire of machine guns and rifles and many of the boats were filled with dead and wounded before they even made the shore.

We took up our appointed position a few hundred yards off the beach as boatload after boatload was towed or rowed past us and the Australians endeavoured to establish a beach-head.

Batteries of Turkish field guns quickly came into action and kept a heavy barrage of shrapnel over the beach and approaching boats, all of which had to pass through this curtain of fire.

Now the fleet opened a tremendous bombardment with all guns, plastering the high ground with high explosives.

The noise was indescribable as hundreds of shells of every calibre screamed overhead and burst with reverberating crashes on the scrub-covered slopes, the sky was dark with smoke and the air heavy with the bitter smell of cordite.   When the bombardment ceased and the Australians attempted to storm the heights, we watched them repulsed with heavy loss.

Meanwhile, we were embarking casualties as fast as we could handle them; they came in all manner of craft: trawlers, lighters and ship's boats.

Later in the morning, suddenly, three enormous water-spouts leapt skywards practically alongside us, accompanied by a deafening roar, followed by three more just over us and short of the battleship London; then three more just beyond her.   We were being straddled by really heavy stuff!

These were shells from the ex-German Battle-Cruiser Goeben which our observation balloon ship Manica now reported had sneaked down the Dardanelles and was firing over the Peninsula (here about seven miles wide) direct into Anzac Cove.   Fortunately, they were her first and last salvoes, as our battleships made a heavy return fire high over Sari Bair and the hilly country beyond, and Goeben retired.

The Gascon came in for a great deal of stray rifle fire but this did not interrupt our work and by dusk we were filled to capacity and over, all wards and available deck space being crammed with wounded.

And so, for us, Anzac Day was over.   The Australians had barely obtained a foothold and their position was precarious as we steamed back to Base at full speed, to return again and again to the beaches.

This continued throughout the months that followed, occasionally visiting the English Sector at Cape Helles but mostly to Anzac, until at the end of the year all troops were gradually evacuated and the costly failure of the Dardanelles Campaign came to an end.

                                                                                                                                                         From B&C Review

From the B&C Review, April 1965:

The Gascon, one of the famous "G's", was a highly successful vessel, and ran in the west-coast service until, some months after the commencement of the East African service in 1910, she was transferred to the Suez route between London and Durban.   On the outbreak of war in 1914, when the mail service was disorganised, the Gascon was temporarily employed as a mail steamer, and was the first Union-Castle liner to sail for South Africa after the commencement of hostilities.   From the Cape she proceeded to the east coast, where she had a narrow escape from an encounter with the German cruiser Konigsberg.   The Gascon was in the vicinity of Zanzibar early on the morning of 20th September, 1914 when H.M.S. Pegasus was sunk off the island by the Konigsberg.   The sound of heavy firing was herd in the distance, and Gascon promptly made for Mombasa.   She eventually returned to Zanzibar under the Red Cross flag to pick up the wounded from Pegasus, and conveyed them thence to Simonstown (Simon's Town, Cape.).   The Gascon, soon afterwards, was taken over as a regular hospital ship, and in that capacity she served throughout the war.   Only in August 1920 did she return to the regular intermediate service, in which she ran until January 1926, when she was laid up in Southampton Water.   She was re-commissioned, however, in September 1926, and ran until May 1928, when she was laid up in the East India Dock, London, alongside her sister, the Gaika.   There the two oldest units of the Cape fleet lay for several months until, finally, they were sold to scrappers, the Gascon being purchased in September, 1928 by Ward's, the well known shipbreakers.

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