War service and loss
In August 1914 the Admiralty requisitioned Caledonia as a troop ship. In March 1915 she left Saint John, New Brunswick carrying members of the 26th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force. [7]
On the night of 31 July 1915 the 38th Battalion (Ottawa), CEF embarked on the Caledonia at Montreal. The transport proceeded down the Gulf of St. Lawrence, but was ordered back to Quebec City due to the suspected presence of submarines off the Atlantic coast. The battalion disembarked at Lévis, and two days later proceeded to Halifax by train. The ship sailed on to Halifax and picked up the 38th 7 August. They sailed on 8 August, landing in the Imperial fortress colony of Bermuda on 13 August to relieve the Royal Canadian Regiment, which had been posted to the Bermuda Garrison in place of the 2nd Battalion of the Lincolnshire Regiment in 1914.
On 4 December 1916 U-65 torpedoed Caledonia in the Mediterranean about 125 miles east of Malta. [8] During the engagement, Caledonia tried to ram U-65, causing slight damage to the submarine. Caledonia sank with the loss of one or two lives (sources differ). [9]
U-65 captured three of Caledonia's survivors: her Master, Captain Blaikie, Major-General HSL Ravenshaw, commander of the British Army's 27th Division, and his adjutant, Captain Vickermann. [10] The German government threatened to put Captain Blaikie on trial as a franc-tireur , and execute him, as it had done to another British merchant captain, Charles Fryatt, that July. Britain responded by threatening to execute a German officer of similar rank if Captain Blaikie were executed. Germany relented, and transferred Blaikie to a prisoner of war camp. [4]
SS Ceramic was a steam ocean liner built in Belfast for White Star Line in 1912–13 and operated on the Liverpool – Australia route. Ceramic was the largest ship serving the route until P&O introduced RMS Mooltan in 1923.
SS Newfoundland was a wooden-hulled brigantine and steamship that was built in 1872 and wrecked in 1916. She was a cargo ship, and for part of her career she was a sealing ship. In 1916 she was renamed Samuel Blandford.
SS California was a twin-screw steamer that D. and W. Henderson and Company of Glasgow built for the Anchor Line in 1907 as a replacement for the aging ocean liner Astoria, which had been in continuous service since 1884. She worked the Glasgow to New York transatlantic route and was sunk by the German submarine SM U-85 on 7 February 1917.
SS Calgarian was an Allan Line steam turbine ocean liner that was built in 1914 and converted into a Royal Navy armed merchant cruiser. Until 1916 she served with the 9th Cruiser Squadron, patrolling off West Africa and then off the east coast of the United States. She spent the remainder of her career making transatlantic crossings between Canada and Britain.
SS Montrose was a British merchant steamship that was built in 1897 and wrecked in 1914. She was built as a cargo liner for Elder, Dempster & Company. In 1903 the Canadian Pacific Railway bought her and had her converted into a passenger liner.
SS Taormina was a transatlantic ocean liner that was launched in Scotland in 1907 for an Italian shipping line. She was owned successively by Italia Società di Navigazione a Vapore, Lloyd Italiano and Navigazione Generale Italiana (NGI). Taormina was briefly chartered as a troop ship for the US Armed Forces in 1918. She was scrapped in 1929.
USS Charlton Hall (ID-1359) was a cargo steamship that was built in Scotland in 1907 and served in the merchant fleets of the United Kingdom, United States and Greece. She served in the United States Navy in 1918. She was renamed Atlantis and then Anastasis in 1930. She was scrapped in China in 1934.
USS Craster Hall (ID-1486) was a cargo steamship that was built in Scotland in 1909 and served in the merchant fleets of first the United Kingdom and then the United States. In 1918–19 she served in the United States Navy. In 1927 she was damaged in a collision off the coast of Peru, was beached to prevent her sinking, but was wrecked.
USS Santa Rosalia (ID-1503) was a cargo steamship that was built in Scotland in 1910 and served in the merchant fleets of the United Kingdom, United States and Greece. She served in the United States Navy in 1918–19. She was renamed Stefanos Costomenis in 1929 and sank in the North Atlantic in 1936.
USS Munwood (ID-4460) was a cargo steamship that was built in Scotland in 1914 and was part of the United States Merchant Marine until 1928. From 1918 to 1919 she served in the United States Navy. In 1928 Yugoslav interests bought her and renamed her Vila. In 1935 she sank as the result of a collision in the Adriatic Sea.
The Queen was an English Channel passenger ferry that was built in 1903 and sunk in 1916. She was the South Eastern and Chatham Railway (SECR)'s first steam turbine ship.
SS Polar Chief was a merchant steamship that was built in England in 1897 and scrapped in Scotland in 1952. In its 55-year career it had previously been called Montcalm, RFA Crenella, Crenella, Rey Alfonso, Anglo-Norse and Empire Chief. Early in the First World War it spent eight months pretending to be the battleship HMS Audacious.
Ramón Alonso R. was a merchant steamship that was built in Scotland in 1898 and scrapped in Spain in 1959. Her original name was Montclair. She was renamed José Gallart in 1901, Balmes in 1911 and Ramón Alonso R. in 1929. Her first owner was the British Elder Dempster Lines, but she spent most of her career with a succession of Spanish owners. She was built as a transatlantic ocean liner with some cargo capacity, but in 1927 she was refitted as a cargo ship. In 1913, when she was called Balmes, the ship survived a serious cargo fire in mid-Atlantic.
SS Themistocles was a UK steam ocean liner and refrigerated cargo ship. She was launched in 1910 in Ireland and scrapped in 1947 in Scotland. She was built for Aberdeen Line, White Star Line managed her for a few years, and she spent the latter part of her career with Shaw, Savill & Albion Line.
SS Orteric was a Bank Line cargo and passenger steamship that was built in Scotland in 1910–11 and sunk by a U-boat in the Mediterranean Sea in 1915. In 1911 she took 960 Spanish and 565 Portuguese migrants to Hawaii to work on the sugar plantations.
SS Verona was a transatlantic ocean liner that was built in Ireland in 1908 for an Italian shipping line. She was a troop ship in the Italo-Turkish War of 1911–12 and in the First World War in 1917–18. In 1918 a German submarine sank her in the Mediterranean with great loss of life.
USS St. Francis (ID-1557) was a cargo steamship. She was built in Ireland in 1914 as San Francisco, and renamed St. Francis in 1918 when she was commissioned into the United States Navy. In 1933 she was renamed Lammot du Pont. In 1942 she was sunk by a U-boat, and 19 of her crew were lost.
RMS Orontes was a steam ocean liner of the Orient Steam Navigation Company that was launched in 1902 and scrapped in 1925.
SS Grampian was a transatlantic ocean liner that was built in Scotland in 1907 and scrapped in the Netherlands in 1925. She was operated originally by Allan Line, and later by Canadian Pacific Steamships. In the First World War she remained in commercial service but carried Canadian troops. In 1919 she survived a collision with an iceberg. In 1921 she was gutted by fire while being refitted. The refit was abandoned, and in 1925–26 she was scrapped.
SS Potaro was a refrigerated cargo steamship that was built in Belfast in 1904, and captured and scuttled in the First World War in 1915.
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