GLOUCESTER CASTLE
from a Company post card
The GLOUCESTER CASTLE was a 7,989 gross ton ship built by Fairfield
Shipbuilding and Engineering Co, Glasgow in 1911 for the
Union Castle Mail Steamship Co.
She had one funnel, two masts and a speed of 13 knots. There was
accommodation for 400 passengers. Used on the London - South and
East Africa Intermediate service. Taken over in 1914 and used as a
hospital ship, she was torpedoed on 31st Mar.1915 while carrying 399
casualties, 300 of these were cot cases. All but one were saved but
three died during the transfer. She was eventually towed back to
Southampton a fortnight later and repaired. The curious
fact about this incident, to have successfully saved so many
casualties says much for the ship's staff and their training, E.F.
Knight makes no mention of it in The Union-Castle and the War
1914-1919 as neither does Marischal Murray in the Union-Castle
Chronicle. An extraordinary omission.
She served from
24/9/1914 to 9/9/1919., including Gallipoli, and was then returned.
In 1919 she went back to the East Africa service and in 1922
transferred to the round-Africa service in which two ships sailed
out via Suez and home via the Cape, and two sailed in the reverse
direction. In 1926 she changed to the West coast intermediate
service. Posted missing in July 1942, it was not until the end of
the war that it was known that she had been sunk on 16th July at
approx. 08.00S 01.00E by the German surface raider MICHEL. [The Cape
Run by W.H.Mitchell and L.A.Sawyer]
THE SINKING OF THE "GLOUCESTER CASTLE"
"The "Gloucester Castle", 8,000 tons was the smallest and oldest of the Union-Castle passenger liners. Already in retirement at Netley, she had been pressed into service once again owing to the exigencies of war. From September, 1939, she voyaged for three years, more or less with regularity, between Great Britain and South Africa, being, in fact, the only Union-Castle liner thus to be continuously employed.
On June 21, 1942, at noon, the "Gloucester Castle" (Captain H.H. Rose) sailed from Birkenhead direct for Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and East London. In addition to her cargo she carried parcel mails and twelve passengers. The passengers were all women and children going out to Simonstown to join relatives at the Naval Dockyard there. The ship sailed in convoy for some days and the proceeded, unescourted, on her way to Cape Town. She never reached her destination. Two months passed, and on August 31, 1942, the Shipping Casualty Department of the Admiralty informed the Union-Castle Company that their vessel "Gloucester Castle", 'gravely overdue', must be presumed lost. For those who had relatives on board the ship, months of anxiety and suspense were now to follow. The full story of the vessel's fate was not known until the war was over.
On Wednesday, July 15, the "Gloucester Castle" was some 1,300 miles south-east of Freetown and was approaching the point almost midway between Ascension Island and the African coast. In those equatorial latitudes it had been hot and sticky; all through the day there had been tropical showers. Night came, as it does in those parts, quickly. It was quiet and still and overcast. The vessel had been blacked-out, and to the look-out at the masthead nothing now was visible but the bow-wave of the "Gloucester Castle". It was seven o'clock, and complete darkness reigned.
Suddenly there came a bright flash close by on the starboard bow, a loud report, and a sickening crash as a shell burst on the "Gloucester Castle", hitting the vessel just below the starboard wing of the bridge. In rapid succession more shells followed, accompanied by pom-pom and machine-gun fire. The wireless room was wrecked immediately; the aerials came toppling down; the radio operators were killed. No message could be sent telling that the raider had attacked the "Gloucester Castle". How many were killed by gunfire will never be known; everything happened very quickly. In less than ten minutes all was over.
The second shell demolished the dining saloon, at the forward end of the deckhouse. A lady passenger and one of the engineers had just come in to dinner. Petrol stored on the foredeck outside the saloon went up in flames. The ship was listing heavily to starboard. All the lifeboats on the starboard side had been shot away or rendered useless. Mr. R.G. Pargiter, senior second officer, who had been on the bridge, rushed along the port side, and, with some of the deck hands, tried to get one of the boats away. As he was passing a woman and child into No 3 boat, the "Gloucester Castle" suddenly righted herself and then, almost at once, took a heavy list to port. The frapping ropes holding the boat carried away; the boat swung out into space; the woman and child were thrown into the sea and were never seen again. The ship was settling so fast that the lifeboat was waterborne almost at once, level with the deck rail where some women and children were standing. The officer shouted to them to jump. Four jumped, but just before the fifth was to make the attempt, The "Gloucester Castle" suddenly sank. As the painter was still attached the lifeboat went down with the ship. Where once had been the "Gloucester Castle", there was only swirling flotsam and a mass of struggling people."
(from 'The Union-Castle Chronicle 1853-1953' by Marischal Murray.)