RMS Otranto was an ocean liner that was built for the Orient Steam Navigation Company in 1925. The "RMS" prefix stands for Royal Mail Ship, as she carried overseas mail under a contract between Orient Line and Royal Mail. Otranto was in service until 1957, when she was sold for scrap.
The ship was named after the town of Otranto in Apulia in southern Italy. She was Orient Line's second ship of that name. The first was a 1909 passenger liner that in 1914 became the armed merchant cruiser HMSOtranto and in 1918 was lost as a result of a collision.
She was 632.0 feet (192.6m) long between perpendiculars, had a beam of 75.2 feet (22.9m) and a draught of 37feet 6inches (11.43m). Her tonnages were 20,032gross register tons(GRT), 12,031net register tons(NRT) and 12,228 tons under deck. She had twin propellers driven through reduction gears by six steam turbines that between them developed 3,722 NHP. Six double-ended and two single-ended boilers supplied steam at 215 lbf/in2 to the turbines. 56 corrugated furnaces with a combined grate surface area of 2,688 square feet (250m2) heated her boilers.[1]
Career
Otranto damage after hitting a rock
In 1926 Otranto was slightly damaged when she struck a rock at Cape Grosso, Greece during a heavy rainstorm. Otranto accidentally collided with the Japanese steamer Kitano Maru[4] in August 1928, heavily damaging her. In May 1932 she played a small part in the rescue of the passengers and crew of the French ocean liner Georges Philippar in the Gulf of Aden.[5] On 4 August 1932 she collided with the Thames bargeWhy Not in the Thames Estuary at Thameshaven, Essex, England; Why Not sank.[6]
When World War II broke out in 1939 the Admiralty requisitioned Otranto and had her converted into a troop ship. In 1942 she was modified to carry landing craft as a Landing ship, infantry. She took part in the invasion of French North Africa later that year and the landings in Sicily and Salerno in 1943. She was subsequently reconverted back into a troop transport and served as such until released from government service in 1948.
Otranto then resumed her pre-war role as a passenger liner, now refitted to carry 1,412 tourist-class passengers. In February 1957 she made her final voyage, from the UK to Sydney, Australia via Cape Town, South Africa. She was sold for scrap in June.[7]
RMS Empress of Russia was a steam turbine ocean liner built in 1912–13 by Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company at Govan on the Clyde in Scotland for Canadian Pacific steamships (CP). She regularly worked the trans-Pacific route between Canada and the Far East.
SS Commissaire Ramel was a French cargo liner that was launched in 1920 and sunk in the Indian Ocean by the German auxiliary cruiser Atlantis in World War II.
RMS Alcantara was a Royal Mail Lines ocean liner that was built in Belfast in 1926. She served in the Second World War first as an armed merchant cruiser and then a troop ship. She returned to civilian service in 1948 and was scrapped in 1958.
RMS Caronia was a Cunard Line transatlantic steam ocean liner. She was launched in 1904 and scrapped in 1932. In World War I she was first an armed merchant cruiser (AMC) and then a troop ship.
RMS Carmania was a Cunard Line transatlantic steam turbine ocean liner. She was launched in 1905 and scrapped in 1932. In World War I she was first an armed merchant cruiser (AMC) and then a troop ship.
RMS Viceroy of India was an ocean liner of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O). She was a British Royal Mail Ship on the Tilbury–Bombay route and was named after the Viceroy of India. In World War II, she was converted to and used as a troopship. She was sunk in the Mediterranean in November 1942 by German submarine U-407.
SS Khedive Ismail, formerly SS Aconcagua, was a turbine steamship that was built in 1922 as an ocean liner, converted into a troop ship in 1940 and sunk by a Japanese submarine in 1944 with great loss of life. She was owned by the Chilean company CSAV 1922–1932, the Scottish William Hamilton & Co (1932–35), the Egyptian company KML 1935–1940 and the British Ministry of War Transport 1940–1944.
RMS Strathaird, later TSS Strathaird, was an ocean liner of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O).
SS Potsdam was a steam ocean liner that was launched in Germany in 1899 for Holland America Line. In 1915 Swedish American Line acquired her and renamed her Stockholm.
RMS Strathnaver, later SS Strathnaver, was an ocean liner of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O).
RMS Nova Scotia was a 6,796 GRT UK transatlantic ocean liner and Royal Mail Ship. In World War II she was requisitioned as a troopship. In 1942 a German submarine sank her in the Indian Ocean with the loss of 858 of the 1,052 people aboard.
SS Yoma was a British passenger liner that served as a troop ship in the Second World War. She was built in Scotland in 1928, and from then until 1940 Yoma ran a regular route between Glasgow in Scotland and Rangoon in Burma via Liverpool, Palma, Marseille and Egypt. She became a troop ship in 1941 and was sunk with great loss of life in the Mediterranean in 1943.
SS Hertford was a refrigerated cargo steamship that was launched in Germany in 1917, seized by the United Kingdom in 1920 as World War I reparations, and sunk by a U-boat in 1942 with the loss of four members of her crew.
SS Slamat was a Dutch ocean liner of the Rotterdam-based Koninklijke Rotterdamsche Lloyd line. Although she was a turbine steamship, she tended not to be referred to as "TSS". She was built in Vlissingen in the Netherlands in 1924 for liner service between Rotterdam and the Dutch East Indies. In 1940 she was converted into a troop ship. In 1941 she was sunk with great loss of life in the Battle of Greece.
SS Mohamed Ali El-Kebir, formerly SS Teno, was one of a pair of steam turbine ocean liners built in Scotland in 1922 for the Chilean company CSAV. She and her sister ship Aconcagua ran between Valparaíso and New York via the Panama Canal until 1932, when CSAV was hit by the Great Depression and surrendered the two ships to the Scottish shipbuilder Lithgows to clear a debt.
SS Cathay was a P&O passenger steamship that was built in Scotland in 1925 and sunk in the Mediterranean Sea in 1942. In the Second World War she was first an armed merchant cruiser and then a troop ship. In 1942 she took part in Operation Torch, and was sunk in a German air raid off Bougie, Algeria.
RMS Asturias was a Royal Mail Lines ocean liner that was built in Belfast in 1925. She served in the Second World War as an armed merchant cruiser until she was crippled by a torpedo in 1943. She was out of action until 1948 when she returned to civilian service as an emigrant ship. She became a troop ship in 1954 and was scrapped in 1957.
SS Reina Victoria-Eugenia was a steam ocean liner and mail ship launched in 1912 in England and operated by the Compañía Transatlántica Española (CTE). She and her sister ship Infanta Isabel de Borbon represented a significant modernisation of CTE's fleet of ageing and obsolescent ships.
SS Melita was one of a pair of transatlantic steam ocean liners that were built in the United Kingdom, launched in 1917 and operated by Canadian Pacific until 1935. Her sister ship was Minnedosa.
SS Lombardia was one of a pair of transatlantic steam ocean liners that were launched in 1914 in Germany for the Hamburg America Line (HAPAG), sold to a Dutch shipping line in 1916, and seized by the United States as World War I reparations in 1922. United American Lines (UAL) operated her until 1926, when HAPAG bought her back.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
United Kingdom 
Barrow [1] 
.jpg){kind=link}