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S.S. "GLOUCESTER CASTLE"
from a Company post card
GLOUCESTER
CASTLE 1911
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]
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