The SS Transylvania was a passenger 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...

 of the Cunard

Cunard Line

Cunard Line is a British-American owned shipping company based at Carnival House in Southampton, England and operated by Carnival UK. It has been a leading operator of passenger ships on the North Atlantic for over a century...

 subsidiary Anchor Line, and a sister ship to SS Tuscania

SS Tuscania (1914)

The SS Tuscania was a luxury liner of the Cunard subsidiary Anchor Line, named after a town in Italy. She was torpedoed in 1918 by the German U-boat UB-77 while carrying American troops to Europe and sank with a loss of 210 lives.-Commercial career:...

. She was torpedoed and sunk on May 4, 1917 by the 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...

 U-63

SM U-63

SM U-63 was one of the 329 submarines serving in the Imperial German Navy in World War I.U-63 was engaged in the naval warfare and took part in the First Battle of the Atlantic....

 while carrying Allied troops to Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

 and sank with a loss of 412 lives.

Completed just before the outbreak of World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, the Transylvania was taken over for service as a troopship

Troopship

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

 upon completion. She was designed to accommodate 1,379 passengers but the Admiralty

Admiralty

The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...

 fixed her capacity at 200 officers and 2,860 men, besides crew, when she was commissioned in May 1915.

Loss

On May 3 1917, the Transylvania sailed from Marseille

Marseille

Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...

 to Alexandria

Alexandria

Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...

 with a full complement of troops, escorted by the Japanese

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 destroyers Matsu and Sakaki.

At 10 am on May 4 the Transylvania was struck in the port engine room by a torpedo fired by the German submarine U-63 under the command of Otto Schultze

Otto Schultze

Otto Schultze was a Generaladmiral with the Kriegsmarine during World War II and a recipient of the Pour le Mérite during World War I. The Pour le Mérite was the Kingdom of Prussia's highest military order for German soldiers until the end of World War I...

. At the time the ship was about 2.5 mi (2.2 nmi; 4 km) south of Cape Vado, in the Gulf of Genoa

Gulf of Genoa

The Gulf of Genoa is the northernmost part of the Ligurian Sea. The width of the gulf is about 125 km, from the city of Imperia in the west to La Spezia in the east. The largest city on the its coast is Genoa, which has an important port....

. The Matsu came alongside the Transylvania and began to take on board troops while the Sakaki circled to force the submarine to remain submerged.

Twenty minutes later a second torpedo was seen coming straight for the Matsu, which saved herself by going astern at full speed. The torpedo hit the Transylvania instead, which sank immediately. Ten crew members, 29 army officers and 373 soldiers lost their lives.

Many bodies of victims were recovered at Savona

Savona

Savona is a seaport and comune in the northern Italian region of Liguria, capital of the Province of Savona, in the Riviera di Ponente on the Mediterranean Sea....

(just north of Cape Vado), and buried two days later, in a special plot in the town cemetery. Others are buried elsewhere in Italy, France, Monaco and Spain. Savona Town Cemetery contains 85 Commonwealth burials from the First World War, all but two of them casualties from the Transylvania. Within the cemetery is the Savona Memorial which commemorates a further 275 casualties who died when the Transylvania sank, but whose graves are unknown.