SS Oronsay (1925)

SS Oronsay in April 1940.
History
Name:	SS Oronsay
Owner:	Orient Steam Navigation Company
Port of registry:	United Kingdom
Builder:	John Brown & Company, Clydebank
Launched:	14 August 1924
Maiden voyage:	7 February 1925
Fate:	Torpedoed and sank off Liberia, 9 October 1942
General characteristics
Class and type:	Ocean liner
Tonnage:	20,043 gross
Length:	659 ft (201 m)
Beam:	75 ft (23 m)
Installed power:	Steam turbine engine
Propulsion:	2 screws
Speed:	18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph)
Capacity:	1,836 passengers

For other ships called SS Oronsay, see List of ships named Oronsay

SS Oronsay was a British ocean liner and World War II troopship. She was sunk by an Italian submarine in 1942.

Oronsay was built for the Orient Steam Navigation Company on Clydebank and was launched by Viscountess Novar in 1924. Her maiden voyage started on 7 February 1925 from London to Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. She continued on this route (extended to New Zealand once in 1938) until the outbreak of World War II. The Australian military contingent for the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth took passage to the UK on the Oronsay in 1937.

Taken up from trade as a troopship, Oronsay took part in the Norwegian Campaign, including Operation Alphabet, the secret evacuation of Narvik on 7 June 1940. Almost immediately afterwards, she participated in Operation Ariel, the evacuation of British troops from western France. On 17 June 1940, she was anchored in the Loire Estuary, embarking troops being ferried out from St Nazaire in destroyers and small boats. During an air-raid, a German bomb landed on the ship's bridge, killing several people, destroying the chart, steering and wireless rooms and breaking the captain's leg. Taking on survivors from RMS Lancastria which had sunk nearby, Captain Norman Savage steered the ship home with the aid of a pocket compass, a sextant and a sketch map.