SS Primrose Hill
| History | |
|---|---|
 United Kingdom
|
|
| Name: | SS Primrose Hill |
| Owner: | Putney Hill Steamship Co Ltd |
| Operator: | Counties Ship Management Co Ltd, London |
| Builder: | William Hamilton & Co, Port Glasgow |
| Yard number: | 448 |
| Completed: | September 1941 |
| Out of service: | 29 October 1942 |
| Homeport: | London |
| Identification: |
|
| Fate: | Sunk by torpedo & shellfire |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | cargo ship |
| Tonnage: | |
| Length: | 421.1 ft (128.4 m)p/p |
| Beam: | 60.4 ft (18.4 m) |
| Depth: | 35.8 ft (10.9 m) |
| Installed power: | 443 NHP |
| Propulsion: | 3-cylinder triple-expansion steam engine |
| Crew: | 41 Merchant Navy plus eight DEMS gunners |
| Aircraft carried: | 1 Hawker Sea Hurricane |
| Aviation facilities: | aircraft catapult |
| Notes: | sister ships: SS Kingston Hill, SS Lulworth Hill, SS Marietta E, SS Michael E |
SS Primrose Hill was a British CAM ship that saw action in World War II, armed with a catapult on her bow to launch a Hawker Sea Hurricane. She was completed by William Hamilton & Co in Port Glasgow on the Firth of Clyde in September 1941.
Primrose Hill was managed by Counties Ship Management Ltd of London (CSM), an offshoot of the Rethymnis & Kulukundis shipbroking company.Primrose Hill was CSM's second CAM ship, in effect replacing Michael E that had been torpedoed and sunk three months previously on her maiden voyage.
Primrose Hill's navigation equipment included an echo sounding device and a gyrocompass.
Primrose Hill had six corrugated furnaces that heated two 225 lbf/in2 single-ended boilers with a combined heating surface of 5,940 square feet (552 m2). The boilers raised steam for a 443 NHP triple-expansion engine that had cylinders of 24 inches (61 cm), 39 inches (99 cm) and 68 inches (170 cm) diameter by 48 inches (120 cm) stroke. The engine was built by David Rowan & Co Ltd, Glasgow.
On 16 October 1942 Primrose Hill sailed from Glasgow a mixed cargo including 3,000 tons of coal, 1,796 tons of general cargo, war material and 11 aircraft. She was as a member of convoy ON-139 for Takoradi on the Gold Coast and Apapa in Nigeria. The convoy dispersed, and at 2118 hrs on 29 October she was northwest of the Cape Verde Islands when UD-5, a submarine that the Kriegsmarine had captured from the Dutch Navy after the surrender of the Netherlands, fired two torpedoes at her. One missed but the other hit Primrose Hill in her engine room killing the second engineer, a greaser and a fireman, and setting the fuel oil in her bunkers on fire. Two of her lifeboats and a number of liferafts were destroyed by the concussion of the blast.
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