RMS Lancastria
A postcard of RMS Lancastria from 1927
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| History | |
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| Name: |
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| Namesake: |
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| Owner: | Cunard Line |
| Builder: | William Beardmore and Company |
| Launched: | 1920 |
| Maiden voyage: | 19 June 1922 |
| Out of service: | 17 June 1940 |
| Nickname(s): |
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| Fate: | sunk by air attack on 17 June 1940 |
| Notes: |
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| General characteristics | |
| Tonnage: | 16,243 GRT |
| Length: | 578 ft (176 m) oa |
| Beam: | 70 ft (21 m) |
| Height: | 43 ft (13 m) |
| Draught: | 31.4 ft (9.6 m) |
| Decks: | 7 decks and a shelter deck |
| Installed power: | 6 steam turbines, 2,500 nhp |
| Propulsion: | twin screw |
| Speed: | 16.5 knots (31 km/h; 19 mph) |
| Capacity: |
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| Crew: | 300 |
| Notes: | Sister ship: RMS Cameronia |
RMS Lancastria (later HMT Lancastria) was a British Cunard liner commandeered by the UK Government during World War II. She was sunk on 17 June 1940 during Operation Ariel. Having received an emergency order to evacuate British nationals and troops in excess of its capacity of 1,300 passengers, modern estimates range between 3,000 and 5,800 fatalities—the largest single-ship loss of life in British maritime history. The sinking of HMT Lancastria claimed more lives than the combined losses of the RMS Titanic (1,517 passengers and crew) and RMS Lusitania (1,198 passengers).
The ship was launched in 1920 as Tyrrhenia by William Beardmore and Company of Glasgow on the River Clyde for Anchor Line, a subsidiary of Cunard. She was the sister ship of RMS Cameronia that Beardmore's had built for the same customer the previous year.Tyrrhenia was 16,243 gross register tons, 578-foot (176 m) long and could carry 2,200 passengers in three classes. She made her maiden voyage, Glasgow–Quebec City–Montreal, on 19 June 1922.
In 1924 she was refitted for two classes and renamed Lancastria, after passengers complained that they could not properly pronounce Tyrrhenia. She sailed scheduled routes between Liverpool and New York until 1932, and was then used as a cruise ship in the Mediterranean and Northern Europe. On 10 October 1932 Lancastria rescued the crew of the Belgian cargo ship SS Scheldestad, which had been abandoned in a sinking condition in the Bay of Biscay. In 1934 the Catholic Boy Scouts of Ireland chartered Lancastria for a pilgrimage to Rome. With the outbreak of the Second World War she carried cargo, and was then requisitioned in April 1940 as a troopship, becoming HMT Lancastria. She was first used to assist in the evacuation of troops from Norway.
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