Arandora Star
Encyclopedia
SS Arandora Star was a British registered cruise ship
operated by the Blue Star Line from the late 1920s through the 1930s. At the onset of World War II she was assigned as a troop transport and moving refugees. At the end of June 1940 she was assigned the task of transporting German and Italian internees along with prisoners of war to Canada. On 2 July 1940 she was sunk in controversial circumstances by a German U-boat
with a large loss of life.
for the Blue Star Line in 1927. As completed the Arandora measured , was 512.2 feet long, a beam of 68.3 ft and accommodated 164 first class passengers. She cruised at a service speed of 16 knots. After a refit in 1929, she could accommodate 354 first class passengers, her tonnage was increased to 14,694 gross tons
As Arandora she sailed from London to the east coast of South America from 1927 to 1928. In 1929 she was sent to Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company Ltd. of Glasgow for refitting. During the refit, her gross tonnage was increased to 14,694 and first class accommodation was increased to 354 passengers. A tennis court was also placed abaft the funnels on the boat deck, and a swimming pool was installed in the after well deck. Upon completion, she returned to service as a full-time luxury cruise ship. At the time of this refit, she was also renamed Arandora Star. The renaming was done to avoid confusion with Royal Mail Ship
s which typically bore names beginning and ending in 'A'.
As a cruise ship, the Arandora Star was based mainly in Southampton, and travelled to many different destinations. These included Norway, the Northern capitals, the Mediterranean, the West Indies, Panama, Cuba, and Florida, to name a few. The Arandora Star also had two unique nicknames because of her colour scheme of a white hull with scarlet ribbon. The nicknames most frequently used were "The Wedding Cake" or the "Chocolate Box".
At the onset of World War II, the Arandora Star was refitted and was assigned as a transport ship. She evacuated troops from Norway and from France in June 1940 before undertaking what was to be her final voyage transporting Axis nationals and prisoners of war to Canada
.
unescorted the day before, under the command of Edgar Wallace Moulton, she was bound for St John's, Newfoundland and Canadian internment camps with nearly 1,200 German
and Italian
internees, including 86 POWs, being transported from Britain. There were also 374 British men, comprising both military guards and the ship's crew. The Italians numbered 712 men of all ages, most of whom had been residing in Britain when Benito Mussolini
declared war on 10 June. The ship was bearing no Red Cross sign, which could have shown that she was carrying prisoners, and especially civilians.
At 6.58 am off the northwest coast of Ireland
, she was struck by a torpedo
from the , commanded by U-Boat ace Günther Prien
. U-47 fired its single damaged torpedo at Arandora Star. All power was lost at once, and thirty five minutes after the torpedo impact, Arandora Star sank. Over eight hundred lives were lost.
At 0705 hours Malin Head
radio received the distress call, which it retransmitted to Land's End
and to Portpatrick
. Throughout August bodies were washed up on the Irish shore. The first was 71-year-old Ernesto Moruzzi, who was found near Burtonport
. Four others were found on the same day, 30 July. During August 1940, 213 bodies were washed up on the Irish Coast, 35 were from the Arandora Star. There were a further 92 unidentified, most probably from the Arandora Star.
s, of which one was immediately destroyed upon torpedo impact. Another could not be lowered off its winches, and two were damaged during their launch and thus useless. At least four of the remaining lifeboats were launched with a very small number of survivors. One other lifeboat was swamped and sank shortly after the sinking. Captain Otto Burfeind, who had become an internee after the sinking of his ship, the , stayed aboard the Arandora Star organizing the ship's evacuation until he was lost when it finally sank.
flying boat
that was following their SOS
distress signal, the Canadian destroyer arrived to pick up the survivors. There were 586 survivors out of the 1,216 detainees. The sick were taken to Mearnskirk Hospital. One of the survivors was the athletics coach Franz Stampfl
.
The British War Cabinet received a report on the disaster on 3 July 1940, although its impact was over-shadowed to an extent by the British attack that day on the French fleet at Oran
.
, and the Canadian commander Harry DeWolf
was cited for his heroism in the rescue operation, as was Captain Burfeind.
In the weeks following the Arandora Star's sinking many bodies of those who perished were carried by the sea to various points in Ireland
and the Hebrides
.
In the small graveyard of Termoncarragh, Belmullet
Luigi Tapparo, an internee, from Edinburgh
, and John Connelly a Lovat Scout
lay buried, side-by-side.
Ceazar Camozzi (1891–1940) from Iseo, Italy was washed ashore somewhere on the Inishowen peninsula Co. Donegal and is buried in the Secret Heart graveyard Carndonagh.
A memorial chapel was built in a cemetery in Bardi, home town of 48 of the dead. Bardi has also named a street Via Arandora Star.
St Peter's Italian Church
in Clerkenwell
, London, unveiled a memorial plaque in 1960. Each year a mass is held on the first Sunday in November, close to the anniversary of the unveiling of the plaque.
In 2004 the Italian town of Lucca
unveiled a monument to 31 local men lost in the sinking, located in the courtyard of the museum of the Paolo Cresci Foundation for the History of Italian Emigration.
The Scottish island of Colonsay
unveiled a memorial on 2 July 2005, the sixty-fifth anniversary of the tragedy, at the cliff where the body of Giuseppe Delgrosso was found.
A bronze memorial plaque was unveiled on 2 July 2008 at the Church of Our Lady and St Nicholas, Liverpool. It was relocated to the Pier Head
in front of the old Mersey Docks and Harbour Board building
after building work was finished.
In 2009, on the 69th anniversary, the Mayor of Middlesbrough
unveiled a memorial in the town hall commemorating the town's thirteen interned Italians held in cells there prior to deportation and death on the Arandora Star's final voyage.
On 2 July 2010, the 70th anniversary of the sinking, a new memorial was unveiled in St David's Catholic Metropolitan Cathedral, Cardiff by the Arandora Star Memorial Fund in Wales.
On the same day, 2 July 2010, a memorial cloister garden was opened next to St Andrew's Roman Catholic Cathedral in Glasgow.
The wreckage of one of the lifeboats remains visible at Knockvologan beach on the Ross of Mull
, largely buried but with its iron suspension hooks still above the sand.
Cruise ship
A cruise ship or cruise liner is a passenger ship used for pleasure voyages, where the voyage itself and the ship's amenities are part of the experience, as well as the different destinations along the way...
operated by the Blue Star Line from the late 1920s through the 1930s. At the onset of World War II she was assigned as a troop transport and moving refugees. At the end of June 1940 she was assigned the task of transporting German and Italian internees along with prisoners of war to Canada. On 2 July 1940 she was sunk in controversial circumstances by a German U-boat
U-boat
U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...
with a large loss of life.
Construction
Initially named Arandora, she was built by Cammell Laird & Company, LimitedCammell Laird
Cammell Laird, one of the most famous names in British shipbuilding during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, came about following the merger of Laird, Son & Co. of Birkenhead and Johnson Cammell & Co. of Sheffield at the turn of the twentieth century.- Founding of the business :The Company...
for the Blue Star Line in 1927. As completed the Arandora measured , was 512.2 feet long, a beam of 68.3 ft and accommodated 164 first class passengers. She cruised at a service speed of 16 knots. After a refit in 1929, she could accommodate 354 first class passengers, her tonnage was increased to 14,694 gross tons
Ship history
Royal Mail Ship
Royal Mail Ship , usually seen in its abbreviated form RMS, a designation which dates back to 1840, is the ship prefix used for seagoing vessels that carry mail under contract by Royal Mail...
s which typically bore names beginning and ending in 'A'.
As a cruise ship, the Arandora Star was based mainly in Southampton, and travelled to many different destinations. These included Norway, the Northern capitals, the Mediterranean, the West Indies, Panama, Cuba, and Florida, to name a few. The Arandora Star also had two unique nicknames because of her colour scheme of a white hull with scarlet ribbon. The nicknames most frequently used were "The Wedding Cake" or the "Chocolate Box".
At the onset of World War II, the Arandora Star was refitted and was assigned as a transport ship. She evacuated troops from Norway and from France in June 1940 before undertaking what was to be her final voyage transporting Axis nationals and prisoners of war to Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
.
Sinking
On 2 July 1940, having left LiverpoolLiverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
unescorted the day before, under the command of Edgar Wallace Moulton, she was bound for St John's, Newfoundland and Canadian internment camps with nearly 1,200 German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and Italian
Italian people
The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...
internees, including 86 POWs, being transported from Britain. There were also 374 British men, comprising both military guards and the ship's crew. The Italians numbered 712 men of all ages, most of whom had been residing in Britain when Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
declared war on 10 June. The ship was bearing no Red Cross sign, which could have shown that she was carrying prisoners, and especially civilians.
At 6.58 am off the northwest coast of Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, she was struck by a torpedo
Torpedo
The modern torpedo is a self-propelled missile weapon with an explosive warhead, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater towards a target, and designed to detonate either on contact with it or in proximity to it.The term torpedo was originally employed for...
from the , commanded by U-Boat ace Günther Prien
Günther Prien
Lieutenant Commander Günther Prien was one of the outstanding German U-boat aces of the first part of the Second World War, and the first U-boat commander to win the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. Under Prien's command, the submarine sank over 30 Allied ships totaling about...
. U-47 fired its single damaged torpedo at Arandora Star. All power was lost at once, and thirty five minutes after the torpedo impact, Arandora Star sank. Over eight hundred lives were lost.
At 0705 hours Malin Head
Malin Head
Malin Head , on the Inishowen Peninsula, County Donegal, is usually given as the most northerly headland of the mainland of Ireland . In fact, the most northerly point is actually a headland named Banba's Crown on the Inishowen Peninsula about 2 km to the northeast...
radio received the distress call, which it retransmitted to Land's End
Land's End
Land's End is a headland and small settlement in west Cornwall, England, within the United Kingdom. It is located on the Penwith peninsula approximately eight miles west-southwest of Penzance....
and to Portpatrick
Portpatrick
Portpatrick is a village hanging on to the extreme south-westerly tip of mainland Scotland, cut into a cleft in steep cliffs.Dating back historically some 500 years, and built adjacent to the ruins of nearby Dunskey Castle, its position on the Rhins of Galloway affords visitors views of the...
. Throughout August bodies were washed up on the Irish shore. The first was 71-year-old Ernesto Moruzzi, who was found near Burtonport
Burtonport
Ailt an Chorráin or Ailt a' Chorráin is a Gaeltacht fishing village about 7 km northwest of Dungloe in County Donegal, Ireland....
. Four others were found on the same day, 30 July. During August 1940, 213 bodies were washed up on the Irish Coast, 35 were from the Arandora Star. There were a further 92 unidentified, most probably from the Arandora Star.
Lifeboats
The modified cruise ship carried fourteen lifeboatLifeboat (shipboard)
A lifeboat is a small, rigid or inflatable watercraft carried for emergency evacuation in the event of a disaster aboard ship. In the military, a lifeboat may be referred to as a whaleboat, dinghy, or gig. The ship's tenders of cruise ships often double as lifeboats. Recreational sailors sometimes...
s, of which one was immediately destroyed upon torpedo impact. Another could not be lowered off its winches, and two were damaged during their launch and thus useless. At least four of the remaining lifeboats were launched with a very small number of survivors. One other lifeboat was swamped and sank shortly after the sinking. Captain Otto Burfeind, who had become an internee after the sinking of his ship, the , stayed aboard the Arandora Star organizing the ship's evacuation until he was lost when it finally sank.
Rescue
After a brief scout by a Short SunderlandShort Sunderland
The Short S.25 Sunderland was a British flying boat patrol bomber developed for the Royal Air Force by Short Brothers. It took its service name from the town and port of Sunderland in northeast England....
flying boat
Flying boat
A flying boat is a fixed-winged seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a float plane as it uses a purpose-designed fuselage which can float, granting the aircraft buoyancy. Flying boats may be stabilized by under-wing floats or by wing-like projections from the fuselage...
that was following their SOS
SOS
SOS is the commonly used description for the international Morse code distress signal...
distress signal, the Canadian destroyer arrived to pick up the survivors. There were 586 survivors out of the 1,216 detainees. The sick were taken to Mearnskirk Hospital. One of the survivors was the athletics coach Franz Stampfl
Franz Stampfl
Franz F. L. Stampfl MBE was one of the world's leading athletics coaches in the twentieth century. He pioneered a scientific system of Interval Training which became very popular with sprint and middle distance athletes.-Early life:Stampfl was born in the capital of then Austro-Hungarian Empire...
.
The British War Cabinet received a report on the disaster on 3 July 1940, although its impact was over-shadowed to an extent by the British attack that day on the French fleet at Oran
Oran
Oran is a major city on the northwestern Mediterranean coast of Algeria, and the second largest city of the country.It is the capital of the Oran Province . The city has a population of 759,645 , while the metropolitan area has a population of approximately 1,500,000, making it the second largest...
.
Citations
Arandora Stars Master, Edgar Wallace Moulton, was posthumously awarded the Lloyd's War Medal for Bravery at SeaLloyd's War Medal for Bravery at Sea
The Lloyd's War Medal for Bravery at Sea is one of the four Lloyd's Medal types bestowed by Lloyd's of London. In 1939, with the coming of World War II, Lloyd's set up a committee to find means of honouring seafarers who performed acts of exceptional courage at sea, and this resulted in the...
, and the Canadian commander Harry DeWolf
Harry DeWolf
Vice Admiral Henry George "Harry" DeWolf was a Canadian naval officer who was made famous as the first commander of during World War II....
was cited for his heroism in the rescue operation, as was Captain Burfeind.
Wreckage and memorials
The wreck is located at 56°30′N 10°38′W.In the weeks following the Arandora Star's sinking many bodies of those who perished were carried by the sea to various points in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
and the Hebrides
Hebrides
The Hebrides comprise a widespread and diverse archipelago off the west coast of Scotland. There are two main groups: the Inner and Outer Hebrides. These islands have a long history of occupation dating back to the Mesolithic and the culture of the residents has been affected by the successive...
.
In the small graveyard of Termoncarragh, Belmullet
Belmullet
Belmullet is a coastal Gaeltacht town with a population of around 2,000 on the Mullet Peninsula in the barony of Erris, County Mayo, Ireland. Its name means the "mouth of the mullet"...
Luigi Tapparo, an internee, from Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
, and John Connelly a Lovat Scout
Lovat Scouts
The Lovat Scouts were a British Army unit. The unit was first formed during the Second Boer War as a Scottish Highland yeomanry regiment of the British Army and is the first known military unit to wear a ghillie suit...
lay buried, side-by-side.
Ceazar Camozzi (1891–1940) from Iseo, Italy was washed ashore somewhere on the Inishowen peninsula Co. Donegal and is buried in the Secret Heart graveyard Carndonagh.
A memorial chapel was built in a cemetery in Bardi, home town of 48 of the dead. Bardi has also named a street Via Arandora Star.
St Peter's Italian Church
St Peter's Italian Church
St. Peter's Italian Church is a Basilica-style church located in Clerkenwell, London.It was built by request of Vincent Pallotti, with the assistance of Giuseppe Mazzini, who was in London at the time, for the growing number of Italian immigrants in the mid 19th Century and modelled by Irish...
in Clerkenwell
Clerkenwell
Clerkenwell is an area of central London in the London Borough of Islington. From 1900 to 1965 it was part of the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury. The well after which it was named was rediscovered in 1924. The watchmaking and watch repairing trades were once of great importance...
, London, unveiled a memorial plaque in 1960. Each year a mass is held on the first Sunday in November, close to the anniversary of the unveiling of the plaque.
In 2004 the Italian town of Lucca
Lucca
Lucca is a city and comune in Tuscany, central Italy, situated on the river Serchio in a fertile plainnear the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Lucca...
unveiled a monument to 31 local men lost in the sinking, located in the courtyard of the museum of the Paolo Cresci Foundation for the History of Italian Emigration.
The Scottish island of Colonsay
Colonsay
Colonsay is an island in the Scottish Inner Hebrides, located north of Islay and south of Mull and has an area of . It is the ancestral home of Clan Macfie and the Colonsay branch of Clan MacNeill. Aligned on a south-west to north-east axis, it measures in length and reaches at its widest...
unveiled a memorial on 2 July 2005, the sixty-fifth anniversary of the tragedy, at the cliff where the body of Giuseppe Delgrosso was found.
A bronze memorial plaque was unveiled on 2 July 2008 at the Church of Our Lady and St Nicholas, Liverpool. It was relocated to the Pier Head
Pier Head
The Pier Head is a riverside location in the city centre of Liverpool, England. It is part of the Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City UNESCO World Heritage Site, which was inscribed in 2004....
in front of the old Mersey Docks and Harbour Board building
Port of Liverpool Building
The Port of Liverpool Building , is a Grade II* listed building located in Liverpool, England. It is sited at the Pier Head and along with the neighbouring Liver Building and Cunard Building is one of Liverpool's "Three Graces", which line the city's waterfront...
after building work was finished.
In 2009, on the 69th anniversary, the Mayor of Middlesbrough
Middlesbrough
Middlesbrough is a large town situated on the south bank of the River Tees in north east England, that sits within the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire...
unveiled a memorial in the town hall commemorating the town's thirteen interned Italians held in cells there prior to deportation and death on the Arandora Star's final voyage.
On 2 July 2010, the 70th anniversary of the sinking, a new memorial was unveiled in St David's Catholic Metropolitan Cathedral, Cardiff by the Arandora Star Memorial Fund in Wales.
On the same day, 2 July 2010, a memorial cloister garden was opened next to St Andrew's Roman Catholic Cathedral in Glasgow.
The wreckage of one of the lifeboats remains visible at Knockvologan beach on the Ross of Mull
Ross of Mull
The Ross of Mull is the largest peninsula of the island of Mull, about long and makes up the south-western part of the island. It is bounded to the north by Loch Scridain and by the Firth of Lorne to the south. The main villages are Bunessan and Fionnphort with smaller settlements including...
, largely buried but with its iron suspension hooks still above the sand.
Sources
- Gardner, N. (2005) "Tragic Waters: The Sinking of the Arandora Star" Hidden Europe magazine, 4 September 2005, pp. 34–36.
- Miller, William H., Jr. Pictorial Encyclopedia of Ocean Liners, 1860-1994. Dover Maritime Books.
- Balestracci, Maria Serena (2008) Arandora Star: from Oblivion to Memory, Mup Publishers, Parma, Italy http://www.mupeditore.it. The book, with both English and Italian texts, includes rare and previously unpublished material, such as pictures related to the rescue of the Arandora Star taken in 1940 by St. Laurents crew.
- The story of the sinking and the wider context is told in Collar the Lot! How Britain Interned & Expelled its Wartime RefugeesCollar the LotCollar the Lot! How Britain Interned & Expelled its Wartime Refugees, by Peter Gillman and Leni GillmanThis tells the detailed story of internment in Britain during the Second World War. At first the British government took a relaxed attitude to the tens of thousands of "enemy aliens," most of...
, by Peter Gillman and Leni Gillman (Quartet 1980). The book, which includes first-hand accounts from a number of survivors (Italian, German and British), provided the first full history of the sinking to be published after World War II. - W.H. Mitchell and S.A Sawyer Crusing Ships, Doubleday, 1967