MS Stockholm (1941)

Ship prefix

A ship prefix is a combination of letters, usually abbreviations, used in front of the name of a civilian or naval ship.Prefixes for civilian vessels may either identify the type of propulsion, such as "SS" for steamship, or purpose, such as "RV" for research vessel. Civilian prefixes are often...

Stockholm was the name of two near-identical ocean liner

Ocean liner

An ocean liner is a ship designed to transport people from one seaport to another along regular long-distance maritime routes according to a schedule. Liners may also carry cargo or mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes .Cargo vessels running to a schedule are sometimes referred to as...

s built by Cantieri Riuniti dell' Adriatico

Cantieri Riuniti dell' Adriatico

Cantieri Riuniti dell'Adriatico was an Italian manufacturer in the sea and air industry which was active from 1930 to 1966. This shipyard is now owned by Fincantieri....

, Monfalcone

Monfalcone

Monfalcone is a town and comune of the province of Gorizia , located on the coast of the Gulf of Trieste. Monfalcone means "Mount of Falcon" in Italian....

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

between 1936 and 1941 for the Swedish American Line

Swedish American Line

Swedish American Line was a passenger and cargo shipping line. It was founded in December 1914 under the name Rederiaktiebolaget Sverige-Nordamerika, beginning ocean liner service from Gothenburg to New York in 1915...

. Neither of the ships entered service for the company that had ordered them—the first ship was entirely destroyed by fire during construction in 1938, while the second was completed in 1941 but immediately sold to the Italian

Italy

government as a troopship

Troopship

A troopship is a ship used to carry soldiers, either in peacetime or wartime...

. The second ship served for three years in the Regia Marina

Regia Marina

The Regia Marina dates from the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 after Italian unification...

and Kriegsmarine

Kriegsmarine

The Kriegsmarine was the name of the German Navy during the Nazi regime . It superseded the Kaiserliche Marine of World War I and the post-war Reichsmarine. The Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches of the Wehrmacht, the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany.The Kriegsmarine grew rapidly...

under the name MS Saubadia, until sunk by British bombers

Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...

outside Trieste

Trieste

Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...

in 1944. It is unknown if she was ever actually used as a troopship.

Concept and background

The Swedish American Line

Swedish American Line

had risen to popularity on the transatlantic and cruise traffic during the late 1920s with their two purpose-built ships, and . During the mid-1930s the company begun planning a new, larger ship to replace one or several of the older ones. At approximately the new ship would be nearly half again as large as the Kungsholm (then the largest ship in the SAL fleet), but due to the differences in passenger demographics she would carry only 1295 passengers compared to the 1544 of the Kungsholm. As with her purpose-built predecessors, it was decided to equipped the ship with diesel engine

Diesel engine

A diesel engine is an internal combustion engine that uses the heat of compression to initiate ignition to burn the fuel, which is injected into the combustion chamber...

s instead of steam turbine

Steam turbine

A steam turbine is a mechanical device that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam, and converts it into rotary motion. Its modern manifestation was invented by Sir Charles Parsons in 1884....

s favoured by most transatlantic shipping companies of the day. However, with a service speed of 19 knots the new ship would be able to offer faster crossings than the previous SAL ships. The new ship was to be named Stockholm, and would become the second SAL ship to bear the name.

MS Stockholm (1938)

In November 1936 the Swedish American Line placed an order for the new Stockholm at Cantieri Riuniti dell' Adriatico

Cantieri Riuniti dell' Adriatico

Cantieri Riuniti dell'Adriatico was an Italian manufacturer in the sea and air industry which was active from 1930 to 1966. This shipyard is now owned by Fincantieri....

, Italy

Italy

, with the delivery date projected to be in March 1939. On 29 May 1938 she was launched from dry dock

Dry dock

A drydock is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform...

and towed to the fitting out berth.

For reasons that are still unknown, the Stockholm caught fire during the night of 19 December 1938 on fitting-out berth. Strong winds and toxic gasses generated by the fire hampered the firefighting, and the firefighters were left with no choice but to spray water on the ship from the outside, hoping that it would extinguish the fire. Eventually the large amounts of water pumped on the ship caused her to lose stability and sink on her berth. Inspection of the wreck after the fire revealed that—apart from certain engine components— the ship was beyond salvage, and she had to be scrapped.

Despite the loss of the near-complete ship, the Swedish American Line was not prepared to give up on their new ship. After negotiations with the shipyard it was decided that Cantieri Riuniti dell' Adriatico would begin construction of another ship (also to be named Stockholm) based on the same plans as before, with the salvageable parts of the burnt-out ship and equipment not yet installed onboard utilized in the construction of the new Stockholm.

The new Stockholm was launched on 10 March 1940, when World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

was already raging in Europe. Construction proceeded regardless of the war, and the ship was ready for delivery to her owners in October 1941. She completed her trial runs in the Swedish American Line livery, but ultimately the company saw no point in taking delivery of the vessel—the war had caused transatlantic services to be suspended, and it was possible that the ship could not even be safely transferred to neutral Sweden from Italy. As a result the Stockholm was sold to the Italian government on 3 November 1941, renamed MS Sabaudia and converted to a troopship.

Service history

Information about the Sabaudia's war-time service is conflicting. She was converted to a troopship, but no information is available about her capacity in that function. Most sources claim that she was used as a troopship by the Regia Marina

Regia Marina

The Regia Marina dates from the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 after Italian unification...

without specifying the campaigns she participated in, while others state she was simply laid up at Trieste

Trieste

after conversion.

On 8 September 1943 Italy signed an armistice with the Allies

Allies

In everyday English usage, allies are people, groups, or nations that have joined together in an association for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out between them...

, resulting in the occupation of Italy by the German Wehrmacht

Wehrmacht

The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...

. The Germans took over the Sabaudia on 9 September. Again it is unknown what the ship's exact duties were—she was either used as a troopship or laid up at Trieste as housing ship for German troops.

The Sabaudia was hit during an Allied air raid on Trieste on 6 July 1944 and caught fire. She capsized and sunk the following day, although some sources claim she was purposefully scuttled by German forces. The Sabaudia's wreck was raised and subsequently scrapped.

Exterior design

Externally the Stockholm was designed with a contemporary, somewhat streamlined appearance. Her forward superstructure was rounded, first raising by one deck from the level of the bow below the forward mast and further back by two more levels. In the 1938 ship the bridge

Bridge (ship)

The bridge of a ship is the room or platform from which the ship can be commanded. When a ship is underway the bridge is manned by an OOW aided usually by an AB acting as lookout...

was located on a separate deck on the top of the ship, but on the 1941 ship it was decided to move it down by one deck, giving the ship a more streamlined appearance. The lower-location bridge combined with the ship's other design features made the 1941 Stockholm resemble a smaller version of North German Lloyd's 1929- and 1930-built Blue Riband

Blue Riband

The Blue Riband is an unofficial accolade given to the passenger liner crossing the Atlantic Ocean in regular service with the record highest speed. The term was borrowed from horse racing and was not widely used until after 1910. Under the unwritten rules, the record is based on average speed...

winners and .

Interior design

For the interior of their new ship, the Swedish American Line decided to adapt the axial layout with a wide central passage—made possible by splitting the funnel uptakes—that had been successfully utilized in the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

liners and . On the Stockholm this construction was used to perhaps an even greater practicality than on her predecessors, with the author Philip Dawson praising her interior layout as being "remarkably straightfordward" and stating she would have been "a great success" had she ever entered commercial service. Like SAL's 1928-built Kungsholm, the Stockholm was decorated in modernist art deco

Art Deco

Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...

style.

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