The second RMS Laconia was a Cunard ocean liner, built by Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson as a successor of the 1911–1917 Laconia. The new ship was launched on 9 April 1921, and made her maiden voyage on 25 May 1922 from Southampton to New York City. At the outbreak of the Second World War she was converted into an Armed Merchant Cruiser, and subsequently a troopship. Like her predecessor, sunk during the First World War, this Laconia was also destroyed by a German submarine. Some estimates of the death toll have suggested that over 1,658 people were killed when the Laconia sank. The U-boat commander Werner Hartenstein then staged a dramatic effort to rescue the passengers and the crew of Laconia, which involved additional German U-boats and became known as the Laconia incident.
A lifeboat or liferaft is a small, rigid or inflatable boat carried for emergency evacuation in the event of a disaster aboard a ship. Lifeboat drills are required by law on larger commercial ships. Rafts (liferafts) are also used. In the military, a lifeboat may double as a whaleboat, dinghy, or gig. The ship's tenders of cruise ships often double as lifeboats. Recreational sailors usually carry inflatable liferafts, though a few prefer small proactive lifeboats that are harder to sink and can be sailed to safety.
SS Soesterberg was a Dutch-owned cargo steamship that was built in Belgium in 1927 and sunk by a U-boat in 1940 in the Battle of the Atlantic.
RMS Orcades was a British passenger ship that Vickers-Armstrongs Ltd of Barrow-in-Furness built as an ocean liner in 1937. Her owner was Orient Line, which operated her between Britain and Australia 1937–39, and also as a cruise ship. The British Admiralty then requisitioned her and had her converted into a troopship.
SS Cedarville was a bulk carrier that carried limestone on the Great Lakes in the mid-20th century until it sank after a collision with another ship, MV Topdalsfjord.
London & Overseas Freighters Ltd. (LOF) was an ocean-going merchant shipping company that for most of its history was based in the United Kingdom.
SS Michael E was a 7,628 GRT cargo ship that was built in 1941. She was the first British Catapult Aircraft Merchant ship: a merchant ship fitted with a rocket catapult to launch a single Hawker Hurricane fighter to defend a convoy against long-range German bombers. She was sunk on her maiden voyage by a German submarine.
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.
SS Lulworth Hill was a British cargo ship completed by William Hamilton & Co in Port Glasgow on the Firth of Clyde in 1940. Lulworth Hill had a single 520 NHP triple-expansion steam engine driving a single screw. She had eight corrugated furnaces heating two 225 lbf/in2 single-ended boilers with a combined heating surface of 7,643 square feet (710 m2), plus one auxiliary boiler.
SS Kingston Hill was a cargo ship built by William Hamilton & Co in Port Glasgow on the Firth of Clyde. She was completed in December 1940. She was managed by Counties Ship Management Co Ltd of London (CSM), an offshoot of the Rethymnis & Kulukundis shipbroking company. She was a sister ship of SS Lulworth Hill, SS Marietta E, SS Michael E and SS Primrose Hill, which were also managed by CSM but owned by other R&K companies.
MV Tower Grange was a cargo ship completed by William Doxford & Sons Ltd in Sunderland in 1940. She was owned by Tower Steamships Co Ltd and managed by Counties Ship Management Co Ltd of London (CSM), both of which were offshoots of the Rethymnis & Kulukundis shipbroking company. Tower Grange was a sister ship of MV Putney Hill, which Doxford built in the same year for another CSM company, Putney Hill Steamships Co Ltd.
SS Marietta E was a British cargo ship completed by William Hamilton & Co in Port Glasgow on the Firth of Clyde in June 1940. She had a single 520 NHP triple-expansion steam engine built by David Rowan and Company of Glasgow, that drove a single screw. She had eight corrugated furnaces heating two 225 lbf/in2 single-ended boilers with a combined heating surface of 7,643 square feet (710 m2), plus one auxiliary boiler.
SS Gracechurch was a UK 4,318 GRT cargo ship built by William Doxford & Sons at Pallion on Wearside in 1930. She twice changed owners and names, becoming SS Peebles in 1933 and SS Mill Hill in 1936. She was sunk by a German submarine in August 1940.
SS Burgondier was a 5,297-ton cargo steamship built to a First World War standard design by Caird & Company at Greenock on the Firth of Clyde. She changed owners and names several times, becoming the Azul, David Dawson, Penteli and finally Brockley Hill. She was sunk by enemy action in 1941.
Counties Ship Management Co. Ltd. (CSM) was an ocean-going merchant shipping company based in the United Kingdom. During the Second World War CSM merchant ships made a substantial contribution to supplying the British war effort, at a cost of 13 ships lost and 163 officers and men killed.
Empire Conveyor was a 5,911 GRT shelter deck cargo ship that was built in 1917 as Farnworth by Richardson, Duck and Company, Thornaby-on-Tees, England. After a sale in 1924 she was renamed Illinois. In 1926, she was sold to France, and in 1934 to Greece and was renamed Mount Pentelikon. In 1939, she was sold to Germany and was renamed Gloria.
USS Willimantic (ID-3549) was a cargo steamship. She was built in 1918 and served in United States Navy commission from 1918 to 1919. She was transferred to United Kingdom Ministry of War Transport service in 1942 and sunk by enemy action in June of that year.
SS Clan Ranald is a steamship wreck off the coast of South Australia that is of unique historic importance. She is the only example in Australian waters of a turret deck ship: a type of steel-hulled cargo ship with an unusual hull shape that was built in the 1890s and 1900s.
SS Glentworth was a shelter deck cargo steamship built in 1920 by Hawthorn Leslie & Co. in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England for R.S. Dalgliesh and Dalgliesh Steam Shipping Co. Ltd., also of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. After the Great Depression affected UK merchant shipping in the first years of the 1930s, Dalgliesh sold Glentworth to a company controlled by Counties Ship Management who renamed her SS Box Hill.
Empire Dryden was a 7,164 GRT cargo ship that was built in 1941 by William Doxford & Sons Ltd, Sunderland, Co Durham, United Kingdom for the Ministry of War Transport (MoWT). Completed in February 1942, she had a short career, being torpedoed and sunk on 20 April 1942 by U-572.
United Kingdom 
