TSS St Julien (1925)

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History
Name: 1925-1960: TSS St Julien
Operator:
Port of registry: Civil Ensign of the United Kingdom.svg
Route:
  • 1925-1939: Weymouth - Channel Isles
  • 1945-1960: Weymouth - Channel Isles
Builder: John Brown and Company, Clydebank
Yard number: 509
Launched: 23 February 1925
Out of service: 12 April 1961
Fate: Scrapped
General characteristics
Tonnage: 1,885  gross register tons  (GRT)
Length: 282.2 feet (86.0 m)
Beam: 40 feet (12 m)
Draught: 13 feet (4.0 m)
Propulsion: 4 parsons steam turbines
Speed: 18 kts

TSS St Julien was a passenger vessel built for the Great Western Railway in 1925. [1]

Great Western Railway Former railway company in the United Kingdom

The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the south-west and west of England, the West Midlands, and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838. It was engineered by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who chose a broad gauge of 7 ft —later slightly widened to 7 ft 1⁄4 in —but, from 1854, a series of amalgamations saw it also operate 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in standard-gauge trains; the last broad-gauge services were operated in 1892. The GWR was the only company to keep its identity through the Railways Act 1921, which amalgamated it with the remaining independent railways within its territory, and it was finally merged at the end of 1947 when it was nationalised and became the Western Region of British Railways.

History

TSS St Julien was built by John Brown and Company as one of a pair of vessels, with TSS St Helier for the Weymouth to the Channel Islands service. She arrived in Weymouth from the Clyde on 4 May 1925. [2]

TSS St Helier was a passenger vessel built for the Great Western Railway in 1925.

The captain, Charles Hamon Langdon, was found dead in his cabin during a voyage from the Channel Islands to Weymouth in September 1927. [3]

She had two funnels but one was a dummy and this was removed in 1928.

On 1 October 1937 she went to the assistance of the French steamer Briseis which had struck the rocks near Grand Roccque, Guernsey. [4]

When war broke out in 1939 she was put to use ferrying troops but very quickly converted into a hospital ship. She took part in the evacuation of British troops from Dunkirk and Cherbourg in 1940. She spent the remainder of the war as a hospital ship, including a period operating in the Mediterranean and supporting the D Day landings. She was damaged by a mine on 7 June 1944 but repaired and resumed service on 24 June 1944.

Dunkirk evacuation evacuation of Allied forces in May–June 1940

The Dunkirk evacuation, code-named Operation Dynamo, also known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, was the evacuation of Allied soldiers during World War II from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, in the north of France, between 26 May and 4 June 1940. The operation commenced after large numbers of Belgian, British, and French troops were cut off and surrounded by German troops during the six-week long Battle of France. In a speech to the House of Commons, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called this "a colossal military disaster", saying "the whole root and core and brain of the British Army" had been stranded at Dunkirk and seemed about to perish or be captured. In his "we shall fight on the beaches" speech on 4 June, he hailed their rescue as a "miracle of deliverance".

Invasion of Normandy Invasion and establishment of Western Allied forces in Normandy during WWII

The Western Allies of World War II launched the largest amphibious invasion in history when they attacked German positions at Normandy, located on the northern coast of France, on 6 June 1944. The invaders were able to establish a beachhead as part of Operation Overlord after a successful "D-Day", the first day of the invasion.

Afterwards she returned to Weymouth for further railway service which lasted until 27 September 1960. [5] She was sent to Van Heyghen Freres, Ghent in March 1961 for scrapping.

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References

  1. ↑ Duckworth, Christian Leslie Dyce; Langmuir, Graham Easton (1968). Railway and other Steamers. Prescot, Lancashire: T. Stephenson and Sons.
  2. ↑ "New Great Western Steamer" . Derby Daily Telegraph. Derby. 5 May 1925. Retrieved 15 October 2015– via British Newspaper Archive.
  3. ↑ "Captain dies on duty" . Aberdeen Journal. Aberdeen. 24 September 1927. Retrieved 15 October 2015– via British Newspaper Archive.
  4. ↑ "French Crew Escape in Own Boats" . Western Daily Press. England. 2 October 1937. Retrieved 15 October 2015– via British Newspaper Archive.
  5. ↑ Lucking, J.H. (1971). The Great Western at Weymouth. Newton Abbot: David and Charles. ISBN   0-7153-5135-4.
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