The SS River Afton was a steam merchant built in 1935 by Lithgows

Lithgows

Lithgows Limited, was a British shipbuilding company based in Kingston, Port Glasgow, on the River Clyde in Scotland.-Founding:The Company was established by Joseph Russell and his partners Anderson Rodger and William Lithgow who leased the Bay Yard in Port Glasgow from Cunliffe & Dunlop and...

, of Port Glasgow

Port Glasgow

Port Glasgow is the second largest town in the Inverclyde council area of Scotland. The population according to the 1991 census for Port Glasgow was 19426 persons and in the 2001 census was 16617 persons...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 and homeported in Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

. She was operated by Campbell Brothers & Co, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. She was named after the River Afton

River Afton

The River Afton is a small river in Ayrshire, Scotland. which flows North from Alwhat Hill in the Carsphairn and Scaur Hills, through Afton Reservoir and then for eight miles down Glen Afton before joining the River Nith at New Cumnock.The river is memorialised in Robert Burns's poem and this led...

 in Ayrshire

Ayrshire

Ayrshire is a registration county, and former administrative county in south-west Scotland, United Kingdom, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. Its principal towns include Ayr, Kilmarnock and Irvine. The town of Troon on the coast has hosted the British Open Golf Championship twice in the...

, Scotland.

Wartime career

She was used in a number of Arctic convoys

Arctic convoys of World War II

The Arctic convoys of World War II travelled from the United Kingdom and North America to the northern ports of the Soviet Union—Arkhangelsk and Murmansk. There were 78 convoys between August 1941 and May 1945...

, to deliver supplies from the Western Allies

Allies of World War II

The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...

 to the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

. She took part in Convoy PQ-1

Convoy PQ-1

Convoy PQ-1 was the second of the Arctic Convoys of World War II by which the Western Allies supplied material aid to the Soviet Union in its fight with Nazi Germany...

 and Convoy PQ-13

Convoy PQ-13

PQ-13 was a British Arctic convoy which delivered war supplies from the Western Allies to the USSR during World War II. The convoy was subject to attack by German air, U-boat and surface forces and suffered the loss of five ships, plus one escort vessel...

, and made the return voyages as part of Convoys QP-2 and QP-10. Her last voyage was with the ill-fated Convoy PQ-17

Convoy PQ-17

PQ 17 was the code name for an Allied World War II convoy in the Arctic Ocean. In July 1942, the Arctic convoys suffered a significant defeat when Convoy PQ 17 lost 24 of its 35 merchant ships during a series of heavy enemy daylight attacks which lasted a week. On 27 June, the ships sailed...

 in June 1942.

Commanded by her master, Harold William Charlton, she sailed from 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...

 bound for Archangel

Arkhangelsk

Arkhangelsk , formerly known as Archangel in English, is a city and the administrative center of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia. It lies on both banks of the Northern Dvina River near its exit into the White Sea in the north of European Russia. The city spreads for over along the banks of the river...

 via Reykjavík

Reykjavík

Reykjavík is the capital and largest city in Iceland.Its latitude at 64°08' N makes it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay...

, carrying a cargo of 2,314 tons of military stores, 36 tanks, 12 vehicles and seven aircraft. She was the ship of the convoy commodore John C.K. Dowding. After dispersal of the convoy, River Afton was sighted by the 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...

 U-703

Unterseeboot 703

German submarine U-703 was a Type VIIC U-boat of the German Kriegsmarine deployed during the Second World War against allied shipping in the Arctic Ocean. She was a successful boat, which had a far longer service life than most other U-boats, primarily due to the restricted zone of operations in...

 at 21.02 hours on 5 July 1942, steaming north east of the Kola Peninsula

Kola Peninsula

The Kola Peninsula is a peninsula in the far northwest of Russia. Constituting the bulk of the territory of Murmansk Oblast, it lies almost completely to the north of the Arctic Circle and is washed by the Barents Sea in the north and the White Sea in the east and southeast...

. U-703 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...

ed the ship, causing significant damage. She sank after being hit by two more torpedoes at 21.05 and 21.22 hours, which caused her to explode and break in two. 15 crew members, eight gunners, one passenger and two naval staff members went down with the ship. The master, the commodore, 31 crew members, one gunner, one passenger and three naval staff members were picked up by the Flower class

Flower class corvette

The Flower-class corvette was a class of 267 corvettes used during World War II, specifically with the Allied navies as anti-submarine convoy escorts during the Battle of the Atlantic...

 corvette

Corvette

A corvette is a small, maneuverable, lightly armed warship, originally smaller than a frigate and larger than a coastal patrol craft or fast attack craft , although many recent designs resemble frigates in size and role...

 HMS Lotus

HMS Lotus (K130)

HMS Lotus was a Flower-class corvette that served in the Royal Navy.She was built by Henry Robb Limited, of Leith, Scotland and launched on 16 January 1942. Originally named HMS Phlox, she was renamed in April 1942 after the previous HMS Lotus was transferred to the Free French Navy...

, and landed at Matochkin, in Novaya Zemlya

Novaya Zemlya

Novaya Zemlya , also known in Dutch as Nova Zembla and in Norwegian as , is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean in the north of Russia and the extreme northeast of Europe, the easternmost point of Europe lying at Cape Flissingsky on the northern island...

.