Darien II
| History | |
|---|---|
| Name: |
|
| Builder: | Fairfields, Glasgow |
| Yard number: | 367 |
| Launched: | 1892 |
| In service: | 1892 |
| Out of service: | 1950 |
| Fate: | Scrapped, 1951 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Steamer |
| Tonnage: | |
| Length: | 175 ft 4 in (53.44 m) |
| Beam: | 26 ft 4 in (8.03 m) |
| Depth: | 13 ft 8 in (4.17 m) |
| Propulsion: | 6-cylinder triple expansion engine, 177 nhp, 2 shafts |
Darien II was the last ship to bring Aliya Bet refugees to Haifa during World War II. A former lighthouse tender, she sailed from the Black Sea to Palestine in early 1941.
The ship was built by the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company of Glasgow in 1892 for the Northern Lighthouse Board and served as a tender, named Pole Star, based at Stromness. She was renamed Orphir in 1931, and then sold to William Marshall of Glasgow for conversion to a salvage ship under the same name. In 1933 she was again sold to James M. Stewart of Glasgow, and finally in 1939 sold to P. Svolakis & Co., of Piraeus, Greece, renamed Sophia S, and registered at Colón, Panama.
In May 1940 the ship was purchased in Piraeus by Moshe Agami and Shmarya Zameret for $40,000. Zameret, who was a U.S. citizen, was the registered owner, and renamed the ship Darien II, still registered under the Panamanian flag. Both men were members of Mossad LeAliyah Bet, a branch of Haganah that organised illegal Jewish emigration from Europe to the British Mandate of Palestine. They planned to take the Darien II to a port in Yugoslavia to rescue 822 Jews from Poland, Germany and Austria, who had attempted to leave Europe in the ship Uranus via the Danube, but had been stranded at Kladovo on the Romanian/Yugoslav border. This plan was abandoned after the entry of Italy into the war in June 1940 made entering the Adriatic too dangerous.
The ship then became involved in a struggle between two branches of Haganah, one dedicated to bringing Jewish refugees from Europe to Palestine in defiance of British restrictions, and the other actively co-operating with the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) to provide Jewish agents to carry out acts of sabotage and intelligence gathering in enemy territory. Various plans were put forward for the ship. Eliyahu Golomb suggested using her to simultaneously infiltrate agents and rescue Jewish refugees in Romania. Another suggestion was to sink the ship at the mouth of the Danube, blocking the entrance. A third plan involved occupying the port of Constanța, Romania, and appears to have received some support from the Royal Navy. Eventually the ship was sold to SOE for £15,000 to operate in the Balkans in cooperation with Haganah, though Zameret remained the registered owner and the ship remained under the control of Mossad LeAliyah Bet.
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