SS Patria (1913)

Patria sinking in the Port of Haifa, Palestine, November 1940
History
Name:	SS Patria
Namesake:	patria, Latin for "fatherland"
Owner:	Compagnie française de Navigation à vapeur Cyprien Fabre & Cie (Fabre Line); Services Contractuels des Messageries Maritimes (1940)
Operator:	Services Contractuels des Messageries Maritimes (1932–40); British-India Steam Navigation Company (1940)
Port of registry:	Marseille
Builder:	Société Nouvelle des Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée
Launched:	11 November 1913
In service:	15 or 16 April 1914
Out of service:	25 November 1940
Identification:	code letters OQDZ (1914–33) call sign FOHH (1934–40)
Fate:	sunk by sabotage 25 November 1940 scrapped 1952
General characteristics
Type:	ocean liner
Tonnage:	11,885 GRT tonnage under deck 9,189 6,744 NRT
Length:	487.2 ft (148.5 m)
Beam:	59.2 ft (18.0 m)
Draught:	40.1 ft (12.2 m)
Installed power:	900 NHP
Propulsion:	twin screws powered by two triple expansion steam engines fed by nine boilers
Speed:	15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph) or 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph)
Capacity:	675 passengers inc. 150 1st class & 300 2nd class (liner service); 2,240 passengers of which 140 1st class, 250 2nd class & 1,850 3rd class (as an emigrant ship) 1,800 troops (1940)
Crew:	130

SS Patria was an 11,885 GRT French ocean liner built in 1913 for Compagnie française de Navigation à vapeur Cyprien Fabre & Cie (Fabre Line), for whom she was first a transatlantic liner and then an emigrant ship. From 1932 Fabre Line leased her to Services Contractuels des Messageries Maritimes, who ran her between the south of France and the Levant. After the fall of France in June 1940 the British authorities in Mandatory Palestine seized her in the Port of Haifa and placed her under the management of the British-India Steam Navigation Company. In November 1940 the Zionist movement planted a bomb aboard which sank her with the loss of between 260 and 300 lives. Patria remained a wreck in Haifa port until she was scrapped in 1952.

Fabre Line ordered Patria and her sister ship SS Providence from Société Nouvelle des Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée of La Seyne-sur-Mer, near Toulon. Patria had seven decks and three funnels, but one of the funnels was a dummy.Patria had nine boilers feeding two three-cylinder triple expansion steam engines. The cylinder bores were 30.4" (high pressure), 49.36" (medium pressure) and 70.55" (low pressure), all with a stroke of 51.2". The engines gave Patria a total of 900 NHP and propelled the ship by twin screws.Patria had direction finding equipment and was the first ocean liner to be equipped with a cinema.