.jpg) The ship asSerpa Pinto in the Second World War | |
| History | |
|---|---|
| Name |
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| Namesake |
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| Owner |
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| Operator |
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| Port of registry | |
| Route | |
| Builder | Workman, Clark & Co, Belfast |
| Yard number | 333 |
| Launched | 8 September 1914 |
| Completed | January 1915 |
| Out of service | 1930–1935; August 1948 – January 1949 |
| Identification |
|
| Fate | scrapped 1955 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | ocean liner |
| Tonnage | 8,480 GRT, 5,174 NRT |
| Length | 450.3 ft (137.3 m) |
| Beam | 57.8 ft (17.6 m) |
| Draught | 25 ft 6 in (7.8 m) |
| Depth | 30.6 ft (9.3 m) |
| Decks | 2 |
| Installed power | 1,055NHP |
| Propulsion | |
| Speed | 15 knots (28 km/h) |
| Capacity | passengers: 278 × 1st class; 328 × 2nd class |
| Complement | as AMC: 33 officers; 230 ratings |
| Crew | as ocean liner: 165 |
| Sensors & processing systems | submarine signalling |
| Armament | |
| Notes | sister ship:Essequibo |
RMSEbro was anocean liner that was launched in Ireland in 1914. With changes of ownership she was renamedPrincesa Olga in 1935 andSerpa Pinto in 1940. She was scrapped in Belgium in 1955.
Ebro was launched for theRoyal Mail Steam Packet Company (RMSP), but requisitioned in 1915 as thearmed merchant cruiser (AMC)HMSEbro for theRoyal Navy. In 1922 RMSP transferred her to thePacific Steam Navigation Company (PSNC). She was aRoyal Mail Ship until 1935, when Jugoslavenska Lloyd bought her and renamed herPrincesa Olga. In 1940 theCompanhia Colonial de Navegação (CCN) bought her and renamed herSerpa Pinto.
As HMSEbro in theFirst World War she served with the10th Cruiser Squadron from 1915 to 1917, and escorted convoys between theBritish Isles andSierra Leone in 1918. As RMSEbro she sailed betweenNew York andChile via the Panama Canal. AsPrincesa Olga she sailed betweenItaly andPalestine. AsSerpa Pinto in theSecond World War she made severaltransatlantic crossings, on which she carried many refugees who had escapedGerman-occupied Europe.
This was the third of four Royal Mail ships that were namedEbro. The first was a sail- and steamship that was built in 1865 asRakaia, bought and renamedEbro in 1871, and wrecked in 1882.[1] The second was a steamship that was built in 1896, sold and renamed in 1903, and sunk by amine in 1917.[2] The fourth was amotor ship that was built in 1952, sold and renamed in 1969, and scrapped in 1978.[3]
In 1914Workman, Clark and Company ofBelfast launched a pair ofsteamships for RMSP's service between England and theWest Indies. Yard number 334 was launched on 6 July asEssequibo,[4] and yard number 333 was launched on 8 September asEbro.[5]
Ebro's registered length was 450.3 ft (137.3 m), herbeam was 57.8 ft (17.6 m), her depth was 30.6 ft (9.3 m),[6] and herdraught was 25 ft 6 in (7.8 m).[7] Hertonnages were 8,480 GRT and 5,174 NRT.[6] She had twinscrews, each driven by aquadruple-expansion engine.[6] The combined power of her twin engines was rated at 1,055NHP,[6] and gave her a speed of 15 knots (28 km/h).[7]
RMSPregisteredEbro atBelfast. Her UKofficial number was 136346, hercode letters were JHMV,[6] and herwirelesscall sign was MTJ.[8]
Ebro andEssequibo were described as "the two finest ships ever built" for RMSP's route between Britain and the West Indies.Ebro made her maiden voyage on the route, but then theAdmiralty requisitioned her for conversion into an AMC.Essequibo served the route slightly longer, until after less than a year she was requisitioned for conversion into ahospital ship.[9]
Ebro was armed with six6-inch QF guns, two6-pounder guns, anddepth charge launching apparatus. The Royal Navycommissioned her at theRoyal Albert Dock, London on 15 April 1915, with thepennant number M 78.[7]
Ebro leftLondon on 21 April. She was offGravesend andSheerness inKent until 15 May, when she left to join the 10th Cruiser Squadron at sea. She served with the squadron until December 1917, patrolling around theFaroe Islands,Iceland, and theNorwegian Sea. Her usual port forbunkering wasGlasgow.[7]
On 15 December 1917Ebro left Glasgow for the last time. She steamed toFreetown in Sierra Leone, where she arrived on 27 December. From then until November 1918 she escorted convoys between Freetown and the British Isles, withDevonport as her usual base in home waters. She was in port inAvonmouth from 18 May to 4 June, and from 17 July to 2 August. On 24 November she reachedTilbury, the next day she reached the Royal Albert Dock, and on 6 December all of her ammunition was unloaded for her to be decommissioned.[7]
The Admiralty returnedEbro to RMSP. According to one source, on 28 October 1919 she traversed thePanama Canal for the first time, heading from theCaribbean to thePacific, in the service of RMSP's subsidiary PSNC.[10] Certainly by December 1919 she was working for PSNC.[11] On 6 December she leftKingston,Jamaica, and on 11 December she reached New York.[12] On 16 December PSNC's New York agents, Sanderson and Sons, gave a banquet for 175 shipping and railroad men aboardEbro at Pier 42 in theNorth River.[11] On 18 December she was due to start a voyage toBermuda for Christmas.[13] Lloyd Sanderson told diners that in the New Year,Ebro andEssequibo would start a service between New York andValparaíso via the Panama Canal, and that by June 2020 sailings on the route should be leaving New York every fortnight.[11]Ebro left Bermuda on 26 December, and got back to New York on 29 December.[14]
On 7 January 1920Ebro left New York on her first voyage to Valparaíso.[15] Her ports of call includedMollendo in Peru on 26 January.[16] She reached Valparaíso on 1 February.[17] On her return voyage her ports of call includedColón, Panama on 29 February, and she got back to New York on 8 March.[18]
On 1 June 1921Ebro reached New York carrying $172,884 from ports on the Pacific coast of South America.[19] That summer,transatlantic passenger ships were fully booked, and RMSPcharteredEbro back from PSNC to provide a transatlantic relief service in June or July.[20] By 6 August she was back on her route between New York and Valparaíso.[21]
On 15 April 1922 alighter broke adrift in New York and struckEbro'sport side aft. Two of her hull plates were damaged and a porthole glass was broken, but she was able to leave port that day for Valparaíso.[22] By the end of 1922 RMSP transferred ownership ofEbro andEssequibo to PSNC, in exchange for certain PSNC ships includingOrbita.[23]Ebro remained on PSNC's route between New York and Valparaíso via the Panama Canal.[24]
WhenEbro docked at Pier 42 on the North River on 19 January 1923,US Customs men seized "a large quantity" of liquor, narcotics, and severalautomatic firearms that were not on hermanifest.[25] In March 1924 Customs men in New York raided RMSP'sOrduña and confiscated liquor andmorphine valued at $16,000.William Hayward,United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, sought to seizeOrduña for violations of Federal law.[26] Five members of her crew pleaded guilty to bringing liquor into the port.[27] As a result, from April 1924 RMSP and PSNC posted two or more armed guards aboard each of their ships when they were in port in New York.[28]
In March 1924Viscount Pirrie, Chairman ofHarland & Wolff, voyaged fromSouthampton to South America with his wifeViscountess Pirrie and her sister. They travelled overland fromBuenos Aires to Chile, where they embarked aboardEbro. Pirrie caughtpneumonia inAntofagasta, and his condition worsened when the ship reachedIquique. AtPanama City two nurses embarked to care for him. By then he was very weak, but insisted on being brought on deck to see the canal. He admired howEbro was handled through the locks.[29][30]
On 7 June Pirrie died. His body was embalmed. On 13 JuneEbro reached Pier 42 on the North River, where Pirrie's friendBaron Inverforth and his wife met Viscountess Pirrie and her sister. UK ships in the port of New York lowered their flags tohalf-mast, and Pirrie's body was transferred to Pier 59, where it was embarked onWhite Star Line'sRMS Olympic, one of the largest ships Pirrie ever built, to be repatriated to the UK.[29][30][31]
Ebro was built as a coal-burner. By August 1924 she had been converted to burn oil.[32]
At about 02:00 hrs on 5 July 1927, asEbro neared New York, fire was discovered in 800 bales of cotton in her number 6 cargo hold. HerMaster,Captain Ellis Roberts, ordered all her hatches battened down and all ventilators closed, both to minimise the air supply to the fire, and to prevent passengers from being aware that there was a fire aboard. The ship clearedquarantine just before 09:00 hrs and docked in the North River at 10:00 hrs.[33]
Five minutes after the last of her passengers had disembarked, Roberts ordered number 6 hatch opened, andlongshoremen wearing gas masks went below in relays to raise bales of cotton to reach the seat of the fire. TheNew York City Fire DepartmentfireboatsJohn Purroy Mitchel andThomas Willett poured water into the hold, and by 14:00 hrs the fire was extinguished. Longshoremen had removed 230 of the cotton bales. The remainder, valued at $50,000, were written off as atotal loss.[33]
On 10 August 1929 a gale hit Chile.Ebro was in Antofagasta, and she and other ships put to sea to ride out the storm. The harbour breakwater was almost totally destroyed.[34]
By 1930Ebro's wireless call sign was GQRL.[35] By 1934 this had superseded her code letters.
The effects of theWall Street crash of 1929 included a global slump in shipping. From December 1930Ebro was laid up at Avonmouth.[10]
In 1935 Jugoslavenska Lloyd bought the ship and renamed herPrincesa Olga,[24] afterPrincess Olga of Greece and Denmark, wife ofPrince Paul of Yugoslavia. The ship was registered inDubrovnik, and her call sign was YTFK.[36] She ran a seasonal service from April to November betweenTrieste in Italy andHaifa in Palestine via theCorinth Canal. Her ports of call wereVenice,Split,Gruž inDubrovnik,Piraeus, andAlexandria.[37]
In 1940 CCN boughtPrincesa Olga and renamed herSerpa Pinto, after the explorerAlexandre de Serpa Pinto (1846–1900). She was registered inLisbon, and her call sign was CSBA.[38]
From May 1940Serpa Pinto served CCN's route between Lisbon andBeira inMoçambique. Later that year CCN transferred her to its route between Lisbon andSantos in Brazil. Between then and the end of the war in 1945 she made ten round trips on the Brazil route.[10]
On 8 September theGerman auxiliary cruiser Widder captured theGreekcargo shipAntonios Chandris in the SouthAtlantic. The German commander ordered the crew to abandon ship, gave them extra food and water,scuttledAntonios Chandris, and left the crew at sea in two lifeboats at position11°25′N34°10′W / 11.417°N 34.167°W /11.417; -34.167.[39]
The two boats became separated. A month later, on 8 October, the 22 occupants of one boat sightedSerpa Pinto and signalled to her withdistress rockets.[40]Serpa Pinto rescued the survivors and landed them atRio de Janeiro.[41] On 3 November they embarked on another CCN ship,Tagus, to return to Europe.[40] A UK cargo ship found the other lifeboat, and on 21 October landed its ten surviving occupants atBuenos Aires.[42]
From December 1940 CCN changedSerpa Pinto's schedule. Her voyages between Lisbon and Brazil were to alternate with voyages between Lisbon and New York. Extra third class accommodation was installed in her cargo holds. One-way fares were $180 in third class, and from $360 to $540 in first class. On 4 January 1941 she reached New York two days behind schedule, due to several days of gales in the North Atlantic. She landed 628 passengers, of whom between 90 and 95 percent were refugees from German-occupied Europe. Passengers complained that the food on board had been very bad, the ship was under-manned, the crew was over-worked, and water had got into some of the third class accommodation during the gales.[43]
Among the passengers wereCzechoslovak, French, and German film producers, directors, and screenwriters, including theCzechPaul Schiller. Also aboard was a party of 50German Jewish refugees on their way to join theJewish community inSosúa in theDominican Republic.Porto Rico Line held its shipCoamo in New York for three hours to give the party time to make their connection.[43] Atugboat ferried the party toCoamo.[44]
Serpa Pinto's next North Atlantic crossing started from Lisbon on 15 March 1941. The Portuguese authorities denied CCN permission to add berths for another 170 passengers to her accommodation. Even so, she carried fourth class accommodation in three sections in her cargo holds, with improvised bunk bedsbetween decks, for which the one-way fare was $170. The UK authorities ordered her to make an unscheduled stop for inspection. She arrived inHamilton, Bermuda on 24 March, where the British detained her for three days. She reachedStapleton, Staten Island on 30 March carrying 640 passengers, including the Jewish sculptorNaoum Aronson; and Nessim Ovadia, Chief Rabbi of theSephardic Jews in Paris.[45][46][47]
On another crossing from Lisbon to New York,Serpa Pinto reached Pier 8 at Stapleton on 23 June with 685 passengers and six stowaways. Her passengers included 29 survivors fromZamzam, which theGerman auxiliary cruiser Atlantis had sunk in the SouthAtlantic two months previously.[48] Also aboard were RabbiMenachem Mendel Schneerson,[49]Washington Luís, formerPresident of Brazil, and a pair of Polish teenage aristocrats bringing aStradivarius violin that they were to deliver toBronisław Huberman.[48]
On 7 September 1941 theJewish Telegraphic Agency reported that a party 56 refugee children was leavingMarseille inVichy France that day, and was due to leave Lisbon on 11 September aboardSerpa Pinto.[50] TheUSHMM'sHolocaust Encyclopedia states that on 24 September the ship reached New York and disembarked 57 children.[51]
TheAmerican Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), in consultation with theHICEM, arranged forSerpa Pinto to embark refugees in Lisbon, sail on 25 October, embark more refugees atCasablanca inFrench Morocco, and take them across the North Atlantic to the Dominican Republic,Cuba, Mexico, and New York.[52] The start of the voyage was delayed,[53] andSerpa Pinto left Lisbon with 138 passengers on 17 November.[54][55] She called at Casablanca, where she embarked another 890 passengers, including 450Spanish Republicans bound for Mexico.[56] Her passengers also included many Jewish refugees, most of them from internment camps in Vichy France or forced labour camps in French Morocco.[57]
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The UK again detainedSerpa Pinto in Bermuda, this time for four days. They removed four passengers: a German couple and a Spanish couple. During the voyage three passengers died: two elderly women, and a German 12-year-old girl.[56] 150 refugees disambarked inSanto Domingo, 239 disembarked in Cuba, and by 22 December the ship had reachedVera Cruz.[58][59] On 26 December the ship reached Pier 9 on Staten Island, where her disembarking passengers included the anti-fascistRandolfo Pacciardi. Two stowaways were found aboard and sent toEllis Island.[56]
On 9 February 1942 it was reported that 150Polish Jewish refugees, accompanied by a JDC representative, had left Lisbon aboardSerpa Pinto to be resettled in Jamaica.[60]
Serpa Pinto also continued to serve Brazil. On 6 May 1942 three members of her crew were arrested in Rio de Janeiro on suspicion of smugglingplatinum, allegedly on behalf of a German diplomat.[61]
Serpa Pinto's crossed from Lisbon to New York in June 1942. On 18 June the UK detained her in Bermuda.[62] On 25 June she reached Staten Island, where she disambarked 677 refugees. They included 50 children in the care ofUSCOM, of whom 23 were the children of Spanish Republicans, 13 were Germans, and 13 were Poles. Adult refugees aboard included the son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren ofAlfred Dreyfus. The JDC cared for most of the refugees, and paid the fares of those who could not afford to pay for themselves.[63] The ship was due to leave New York on 2 July on her return voyage to Lisbon. However, US authorities held her for at least two days, reportedly over a dispute with the German government about which US port the Swedish linerDrottningholm should use when repatriating diplomats on either side of the war.[64][65]
In 1942Serpa Pinto made a crossing from Lisbon toBaltimore. The UK detained her in Bermuda on 22 September.[66] On 11 October she reached Baltimore, where she disembarked nearly 300 passengers, 120 of whom were Jewish refugees, most of them from France. Her passengers also included 48 other French, 66 Poles, 27 US citizens, 26 Portuguese, and 13stateless people.[67] The Baltimore branch of theHIAS met the Jewish refugees.[68]
Also in 1942Serpa Pinto made crossings from Lisbon toPhiladelphia. On 30 November she landed Jewish refugees at Philadelphia, where they were met by the New York branch of the HIAS.[69] On a subsequent crossing to Philadelphia she passed theDelaware Breakwater on 24 January 1943, but was then stopped offMarcus Hook, Pennsylvania for five US government agencies to question her 188 passengers before allowing them to disembark. They included 100 refugees, 43 US citizens, 36 children, and 35 stateless people.[70] They were allowed to disembark on 26 January.[71]
On 17 April 1943Serpa Pinto left Lisbon on another crossing to the USA. Her passengers included 32 children of various nationalities, who had been refugees in Spain since theGerman and Italian invasion of Vichy France in November 1942.[72]
On 13 March 1944Serpa Pinto reached Lisbon from the US and Canada carrying 125 UK children to be repatriated.[73] On 7 April she reached Philadelphia carrying 376 refugees. 274 were transferred to trains to take them toToronto andMontreal.[74] This was the largest group of refugees that Canada had allowed to enter the country since the war began. The JDC paid their travel costs, and the United Jewish Refugee Agency, War Relief Agency, and the Jewish Immigrant Aid Society, guaranteed that they would not become a charge upon public funds.[75] The group going to Canada includedAlexis Kanner, then two years old.[76] The remainder were repatriated US citizens, and passengers travelling onward to Latin America.[74]
Other notable refugees who left Europe viaSerpa Pinto includeMarcel Duchamp,[77] Marcel Reich (who becameMarc Rich) with his parents in 1941,[78] andSimone Weil in 1942.[77] One of her child refugees was Wulf Wolodi Grajonca, who became the rock music promoterBill Graham.[79] The ship became nicknamed theFriendship Vessel orDestiny Ship.[77]
On 16 May 1944Serpa Pinto left Lisbon for Philadelphia. She called atPorto on 18 May, andPonta Delgada in theAzores on 21 May. On 26 MayU-541 stopped her in mid-Atlantic. The U-boat commander took two prisoner two young men from the US, and ordered her 154 remaining passengers and 155 crew to abandon ship. Three people were killed in accidents while abandoning ship. Theship's doctor died by falling from a rope ladder into the sea. One of her cooks was killed by the swinging block of ablock and tackle hitting him on the head. The 16-month-old daughter of a Polish refugee couple was killed when one of the lifeboats was being lowered and one of the boat's falls broke, tipping all of its occupants into the sea.[80][81]
The U-boat commander signalled theOberkommando der Marine (OKM) for permission to sink the liner. For nine hours the passengers and crew waited in the lifeboats for the reply from the OKM. Twelve hours after the ship was stopped,U-541 was ordered to let her resume her voyage. The passengers and crew reboarded her, and after another five hoursSerpa Pinto resumed her voyage. She reached Philadelphia on 31 May.[80]
On 10 October 1945Serpa Pinto left Lisbon on her eleventh voyage to Brazil. In August 1948, en route from Brazil to Portugal, she suffered engine failure. She was out of service for repairs until January 1949. From 14 August 1953 her route wasVigo – Lisbon –Funchal –La Guaira –Curaçao –Havana. She made twelve round trips on this route. On 9 July 1954 she left Lisbon on a final voyage to Santos, viaSão Vicente, Cape Verde and Rio de Janeiro. On 6 September 1955 she left Lisbon under tow toAntwerp in Belgium to be scrapped.[10][82]
Shipwrecks and maritime incidents in 1927 | |
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| Shipwrecks |
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| Other incidents |
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Shipwrecks and maritime incidents in May 1944 | |
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| Shipwrecks |
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| Other incidents |
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