Orduna I (liner)

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john sefton
Posts: 1816
Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2009 1:59 pm

Orduna I (liner)

Post by john sefton » Thu Dec 09, 2010 9:20 am

SS Orduna was an ocean liner built in 1913-14 by Harland & Wolff in Belfast for the Pacific Steam Navigation Company. After two voyages she was chartered to Cunard Line. In 1921 she went to the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, then being resold to the PSNCo in 1926. Her sister ships were the RMSP Orbita and SS Orca.
She provided transatlantic passenger transport, measured approximately 15,500 gross tons, and was 550.3 ft x 67.3 ft.

First World War.
Orduna was pressed into service as an auxiliary cruiser and troop transport in the First World War running from Halifax, Canada to Liverpool with notables such as Quentin Roosevelt on board.
In January 1915 Orduna rescued the Russian crew of the sailing ship Loch Torridon, which had sprung a leak while transporting timber off the west coast of Ireland. Later in 1915, en-route for New York, Orduna was targeted by a U-boat. The torpedo failed to hit the ship, which arrived safely.
In 1918 Orduna collided with the 4,406 ton steamer Konkary, carrying a cargo of ballast from Queenstown to Trinidad. Konkary was lost in the accident.

Between the wars.
In April 1923 she was involved in another rescue, transporting the crew of the barquentine Clitha, which had been abandoned and set on fire, to England after they had been rescued by the schooner Jean Campbell.
In 1925, Dean James E. Lough of the Extra-Mural Division of the New York University chartered Orduna for the transport of 213 students to France, with lectures taking place on board.

In 1938 the Orduna was used for the third and final 'Peace Cruise', carrying 460 Scouters and Guiders, including Robert and Olave Baden-Powell, and their daughter Heather, on a cruise to Iceland, Norway, Denmark and Belgium. Orduna left Liverpool on 8 August, returning on 25 August via Dover.
Robert Baden-Powell was too ill to leave the ship during the voyage, but parties of local Scouts visited him on the ship at most of the stops, while the Scouters and Guiders on the ship took the opportunity to tour local landmarks and attend receptions. During the stop at Reykjavik on Thursday, 11 August, during which Orduna moored beside the German cruiser Emden, a party from the Scouts of Iceland brought some rock on board so that Baden-Powell could still 'set foot in Iceland'. The Orduna called at Trondheim, Norway, on 15 August, Copenhagen, Denmark on 18 August, and Belgium on Sunday 21 August, before returning to England.

Second World War
During the 1939 "Voyage of the Damned" affair, where German Jewish refugees were refused entry into Cuba, the United States and Canada, Orduna was refused permission to land 40 refugees at Havana.
With the need for military transport in the Second World War, in 1941 she was put into service by the British government as a troopship. Another task during the Second World War was that of an evacuation transport. Military transport continued until 1949.

Post-Second World War
In 1947 conditions for troops returning from Port Said in Egypt on the Orduna, said to include overcrowding and poor food, were raised with the Secretary of State for War.

Demise
Orduna was decommissioned and laid up in November 1950 and dismantled the following year in Dalmuir, Scotland.
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john sefton
Posts: 1816
Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2009 1:59 pm

Re: Orduna I (liner)

Post by john sefton » Thu Dec 09, 2010 9:37 am

This well‑known P.S.N.C. liner was launched at Belfast in 1913. She was chartered by the Cunard company to maintain their Liverpool‑New York service when war broke out in 1914, and she remained on the service until the end of hostilities. From 1918 to 1921 she was on the P.S.N. Company's South American service. In 1921 she was transferred to the Royal Mail Line's Hamburg ‑ Southampton ‑ Cherbourg ‑ New York service, continuing on this run until 1927.


In 1923 she made the first Welsh‑speaking cruise from Liverpool to the Norwegian fjords, a chart of the voyage being placed in the Welsh National Museum at Cardiff.


At the commencement of hostilities in 1939 the Orduna was in Liverpool preparing to sail. She left two days afterwards with a full passenger list and completed her voyage without escort for most of the way. She was one of the lucky ships of the war, for despite continuous service in many seas she did not encounter enemy action either from sea, land or air.


Following the collapse of France in 1940, the Orduna was chosen as the repatriation ship and sailed from Liverpool on July 26 with a full complement of French nationals on board and was fully illuminated in accordance with the Hague Convention. In 1941 she commenced her trooping career and by the middle of 1943 the Orduna had made four voyages to the Middle East and one to Bombay, via Freetown, the Cape and Durban, including a short trip in April to Reykjavik, Iceland. After the capture of Madagascar she carried the Vichy Governor and his staff from Tamatave to Durban, while on the same voyage some 500 French naval officers and ratings from Suez were on board, proceeding to the United Kingdom to join the Free French forces.


After the recapture of Abyssinia the steamer embarked part of the West African Division (Nigerian
Regiment) at Berbera. They had been through the whole of the Abyssinian campaign, and the Orduna took them to Durban for transhipment to Lagos. Before the last stages of operations in Italy, the Orduna was engaged between Oran and Naples carrying white and coloured U.S.A. troops for the advance on Rome, and on the voyage she had on board a complete unit of coloured troops. On another occasion she had no less than thirteen nationalities on board.
In August, 1945, the Orduna was commodore vessel for the Malaya Invasion Force, and after Japan's collapse embarked Allied prisoners‑of‑war and internees at Rangoon, leaving there on September 20 for Liverpool with 1,714 of these passengers on board. She received a great ovation at her home port on arrival, a fitting climax to her war career. The prisoners‑of‑war presented a scroll to the master bearing the following inscription: "To Capt. J. Williams, officers and crew, S.S. Orduna, in recognition of a happy voyage home from the Far East, from returning British prisoners‑of war and internees. September! October, 1945."

Sea Breezes November 1946

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