HMHS Asturias

Hospital ship Asturias
History
United Kingdom
Name:	Asturias
Operator:	Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, Belfast
Builder:	Harland & Wolff, Ltd., Belfast
Completed:	1908
United Kingdom
Name:	HMHS Asturias
Operator:	Royal Navy
Fate:	Torpedoed by the German U-boat UC-66 and beached on 20 March 1917
United Kingdom
Name:	SS Arcadian
Operator:	Royal Mail Steam Packet Company
Route:	sailed the Mediterranean and West Indies
In service:	1920
Out of service:	1930
Fate:	Scrapped in 1933
General characteristics
Type:	Hospital ship
Tonnage:	22,181 GRT tonnage under deck 16,089 13,189 NRT
Length:	630.5 ft (192.2 m) p/p 656 ft (200 m) o/a
Beam:	78.5 ft (23.9 m)
Depth:	40.5 ft (12.3 m)
Decks:	3
Installed power:	As built: 3,366 NHP; 10,000 ihp, 7,500 bhp From 1934: 4,205 NHP; 24,000 shp
Propulsion:	twin screws powered by: 2 × 8 cylinder 4-stroke double-acting Burmeister & Wain diesel engines (until 1934); 6 × steam turbines (from 1934)
Speed:	16.5 knots (30.6 km/h) (until 1934) 19 knots (35 km/h) (from 1934)
Boats & landing craft carried:	built with 30 lifeboats, later reduced to 28
Capacity:	1,430 passengers: 432 1st class 223 2nd class 775 3rd class
Complement:	254
Armament:	as AMC: BL 6 inch Mk XII naval guns QF 3 inch 20 cwt anti-aircraft guns
Notes:	sister ship: RMS Alcantara

HMHS Asturias was a hospital ship drafted into the British Royal Navy. On 20 March 1917 on her route from Avonmouth to Southampton she was torpedoed by the German U-boat UC-66. Beached by the crew near Bolt Head, Asturias was raised and towed to Plymouth where she sat for two years as a ammunition hulk.

Asturias worked for the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company operating the Southampton – Buenos Aires run. She was drafted into the Navy as a hospital ship and served in a number of places including Gallipoli, Egypt and Salonika, returning wounded to the UK. Although she was retrofitted for 896 patients, on one occasion she shipped 2,400 sick and wounded back to the UK.

At 5:05 on 1 February 1915 a German U-boat launched a torpedo that successfully struck Asturias but failed to detonate. One month later the Germans released a press release that claimed Asturias was misidentified and that once the mistake was realized by the U-boat crew they broke off the attack.

J. R. R. Tolkien was shipped back to the UK on Asturias. On 27 October 1916 as his battalion attacked Regina Trench, during the Battle of the Somme, he came down with trench fever, a disease carried by lice, which were common in the dugouts. Tolkien was invalided to England on 8 November 1916, and remembered there being salt water baths on board.

On 20 March 1917, Asturias had just finished unloading her cargo of 1000 wounded men from the front when, en-route from Avonmouth to Southampton, she was torpedoed by the German U-boat UC-66. She was able to beach herself near Bolt Head, but the damage was so extensive that she was declared a total loss. Thirty-one persons had been killed, with a further twelve missing. If she had gone down while still packed with wounded men the casualties would have been much higher, as many of the men could not even move. The government then bought and salvaged her, and she became a floating ammunition hulk at Plymouth for two years.

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