TSS St David (1931)

TSS St David was a passenger vessel built for the Great Western Railway in 1931.[1]

History
Name: 1932-1944: TSS St David
Operator: 1932-1944: Great Western Railway
Port of registry:
Builder: Cammell Laird, Birkenhead
Yard number: 985
Launched: 10 December 1931
Completed: 1932
Out of service: 1944
Fate: Sunk
General characteristics
Tonnage: 800 gross register tons (GRT)
Length: 327.2 feet (99.7 m)
Beam: 46.7 feet (14.2 m)
Draught: 17.7 feet (5.4 m)
Speed: 21 kts

History

TSS St David was built by Cammell Laird at Birkenhead as one of a pair of new passenger vessels, the other being TSS St Andrew, and launched on 10 December 1931 by Viscountess Churchill, wife of the chairman of the Great Western Railway.[2] She was set to work on the Fishguard to Rosslare service in replacement of her namesake St David of 1906.

She was requisitioned during the Second World War, and served as a hospital ship. She took part in the Dunkirk Evacuation, but was sunk on 24 January 1944 in the Mediterranean Sea off Anzio, Lazio, Italy.[3] At the time she was loaded with wounded soldiers. Although well-marked and lit in accordance with the laws of war, the ship was sunk by German aircraft. Of the 229 people aboard, 96 were killed.[4]

References
  1. Duckworth, Christian Leslie Dyce; Langmuir, Graham Easton (1968). Railway and other Steamers. Prescot, Lancashire: T. Stephenson and Sons.
  2. "New Railway Steamer". Hartlepool Mail. Hartlepool. 10 December 1931. Retrieved 15 October 2015 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  3. "Sinking Of Hospital Ship". The Times (49765). London. 28 January 1944. col E, p. 4.
  4. Atkinson, Rick (2 October 2007). The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 (The Liberation Trilogy Book 2). 7359: Henry Holt and Co.CS1 maint: location (link)
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