 Lady Nelson as hospital ship | |
| History | |
|---|---|
 Canada | |
| Name | RMSLady Nelson |
| Namesake | Frances Nelson, wife of Royal Navy AdmiralHoratio Nelson |
| Owner | Canadian National Steamship Co |
| Port of registry |  Halifax, Nova Scotia |
| Route | Halifax-Boston –Bermuda –Caribbean –British Guiana |
| Builder | Cammell Laird,Birkenhead |
| Launched | 17 July 1928 |
| Completed | 1928 |
| Identification |
|
| Fate | Scrapped 1968 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class & type | Lady-classocean liner |
| Tonnage | |
| Length | 419.5 ft (127.9 m) |
| Beam | 59.1 ft (18.0 m) |
| Depth | 28.2 ft (8.6 m) |
| Decks | 3 |
| Propulsion | Steam turbines; twinscrew |
| Speed | 14 knots (26 km/h) |
| Crew | 107 |
| Sensors & processing systems | direction finding equipment |
| Notes | sister ships:Lady Drake,Lady Hawkins,Lady Rodney,Lady Somers |
RMSLady Nelson was asteam turbineocean liner which served in passenger service from 1928 to 1968 and operated as wartimehospital ship from 1943 to 1945. One of a class of fivesister ships popularly known as "Lady Boats", she was built for theCanadian National Steamship Company (CNS). The five vessels wereRoyal Mail Ships that CNS operated fromHalifax, Nova Scotia and theCaribbeanviaBermuda.Lady Nelson was sold to Egyptian owners in 1953 and served asGumhuryat Misr andAlwadi until she was scrapped in 1968.
Lady Nelson was built in 1928 byCammell Laird ofBirkenhead, on theWirral in England, the same builder for all fiveLady class liners. Like her sistersLady Nelson was anoil-burner, with a set of four Cammell Laird steam turbines driving thepropeller shafts to her twinscrews by single-reduction gearing. She had three passenger decks, and by 1931 she was equipped with adirection finding device.[1]
CN introduced the liners which became known as "Lady Boats" for mail, freight and passenger traffic between Canada, Bermuda and the Caribbean.Lady Nelson along withLady Hawkins andLady Drake were designed for service to eastern islands of the British West Indies and had larger passenger capacity but lesser cargo capacity thanLady Rodney andLady Somers who were built for service to western islands.[2] The hulls of all the Lady Boats were painted white,[3] which then was a relatively new fashion among shipping companies, and confined largely to passenger ships serving tropical or sub-tropical destinations.
After her launch,Lady Nelson was introduced to Canadian ticket and travel agents when the ship hosted a special lunch, press conference and tour to introduce the "Lady Boats" on 27 November 1928 atPier 21 inHalifax, Nova Scotia where the ships were acclaimed as "the finest boats afloat" in North America. The ships were introduced at the same time as Canada opened the Pier 21 ocean liner terminal in Halifax designed to give Canada a competitive presence in Atlantic travel routes.[4]
Lady Nelson sailed fortnightly between Halifax andBritish GuianaviaBoston,Bermuda, theLeeward Islands, theWindward Islands andBarbados. In summer the route was extended to the port ofMontreal. CN named each of its five new liners after the wife of an English or British admiral who was noted for his actions in the Caribbean.[5]Lady Nelson's namesake wasFrances Nelson, wife of the famousRoyal Navy AdmiralHoratio Nelson.
Lady Nelson was torpedoed byU-161 on 10 March 1942 while alongside atCastries, St. Lucia.[6] Fifteen passengers and three crewmen were killed. The ship sank at the wharf but was refloated in late March and towed toMobile, Alabama for repairs.
The Canadian government decided to convertLady Nelson to ahospital ship to bring home Canadian wounded. Canadians had previously been sent home for treatment on British hospital ships but as casualties mounted from fighting in North Africa, the British asked Canada to provide its own hospital ships.[7] Although informally called HMCS or HMCHSLady Nelson by her crew, she remained owned by Canadian National Steamships, under charter by the Canadian Department of National Defence and retained a civilian crew of 75 from theCanadian Merchant Navy and 100 medical staff from the Canadian Army.[8] Completed as a hospital ship in April 1943,Lady Nelson had an operating theatre, x-ray machine and wards for 515 men. A special medical embarkation unit was created atPier 21 in Halifax to unload patients and transfer and escort them on hospital trains which took the wounded to hospitals across Canada. As a hospital ship,Lady Nelson made 30 crossings of the Atlantic and brought 25,000 wounded Canadians home. When fighting ended in Europe in June 1945,Lady Nelson was switched to returning Canadian soldiers andwar brides.[9]
Lady Nelson returned to civilian duties in 1946, the only Lady Boat, along withLady Rodney, to survive the war. However declining passenger traffic due to air travel, high fuel consumption from the ship's turbine engines and rising labour costs made the Lady Boats too expensive to run. It was decided to replace the two lady boats with motor vessels with smaller passenger capacity in 1951.[10] In 1952Lady Nelson andLady Rodney were sold to Egyptian owners for $750,000. After being refitted atAlexandria and then renamed, they were used to carry passengers in the Mediterranean and Red Seas.[11] Under her new owner, the Khedivial Mail line,Lady Nelson was renamedGumhuryat Misr, later becomingAlwadi in 1960 until she was scrapped in 1968.[12]
A large model of the ship in hospital colours is displayed at theCanadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 in Halifax at the terminal whereLady Nelson operated for most of her career. A short street atCFB Halifax is named Lady Nelson Road in her honour. TheNaval Museum of Halifax owns a 1944 painting byWilfred Leonard Whitern ofLady Nelson and her original hospital ship flags which are displayed in the Stadacona Health Centre atCFB Halifax.Lady Nelson is also the subject of two paintings in the war art collection of theCanadian War Museum inOttawa.
