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HMHS Llandovery Castle

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Revision as of 02:48, 28 July 2017 by Linton (talk | contribs) (Remarks)
HMHS Llandovery Castle.jpg
History
Name HMHS Llandovery Castle
Builder/Built 1914 Barclay Curle & Co, Glasgow
Type Passenger liner (twin screw)
Displacement 10,639 tons
Speed 15 knots


Remarks

Owned by the Union-Castle Line and designed to carry 429 passengers. As a hospital ship she could service 622 beds with 102 medical staff.

The sinking of the Llandovery Castle by U-Boat U-86 off southern Ireland on 27 June 1918 is considered one of the worst atrocities of the war. She was employed as a hospital ship and had her cross lights were on when she was torpedoed without warning by a German submarine.

Firing at a hospital ship was against international law and the standing orders of the Imperial German Navy. The captain of U-86, Helmut Brümmer-Patzig, sought to destroy the evidence of torpedoing the ship. When the crew took to the lifeboats, U-86 surfaced, ran down all but one of the lifeboats and machine-gunned many of the survivors.

Only 24 people survived out of the 258 people on board.

Soldiers carried

Alexandria to Marseilles Acting as a troop ship 20 - 25 March 1916