RMS Laconia (1921)



The second RMS Laconia was a Cunard ocean liner built by Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson as a successor to the  Laconia  of 1911 to 1917. Like her predecessor, sunk during the First World War, this Laconia would also be destroyed by a German U-boat, whose commander Werner Hartenstein then staged a dramatic rescue effort for its passengers and crew, which involved additional German U-boats sent for assistance. It became known as the Laconia incident. The new ship was launched on 9 April 1921, and made her maiden voyage on 25 May 1922 from Southampton to New York. {| class="toc" id="toc"

Contents
[hide] *1 Description
 * 2 Early career
 * 3 Drafted into war service
 * 4 Final moments
 * 5 Media
 * 6 See also
 * 7 References
 * 8 External links
 * }

Description
Laconia was 601 feet 3 inches (183.26 m) long, with a beam of 73 feet 7 inches (22.43 m). She had a depth of 40 feet 6 inches (12.34 m) and a draught of 32 feet 8 inches (9.96 m). She was powered by six steam turbines of 2,561 nhp, which drove twin screw propellors via double reduction gearing. The turbines were made by the Wallsend Slipway Co Ltd, Newcastle upon Tyne.[1] In addition to her passenger accommodation, Laconia had 10,920,060 cubic feet (309,222 m3) of refrigerated cargo space.[2]

Early career
Crest of the RMS Laconia (with Royal Mail "crown" logo)Laconia was built by Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson Ltd, Newcastle upon Tyne.[1] Launched on 9 April 1921, she was completed in January 1922.[3] Her port of registry was Liverpool. The code letters KLWT and United Kingdom Official Number 145925 were allocated.[1] As a Royal Mail Ship, Laconia was entitled to display the Royal Mail "crown" logo as a part of its crest. In January 1923 Laconia began the first around-the-world cruise, which lasted 130 days and called at 22 ports.

On 8 September 1925, Laconia collided with the British schooner Lucia P. Dow in the Atlantic Ocean 60 nautical miles (110 km) east of Nantucket, Massachusetts, United States. Laconia towed the schooner for 120 nautical miles (220 km) before handing the tow over to the American tug Resolute.[4] In 1934, her code letters were changed to GJCD.[5] On 24 September 1934 Laconia was involved in a collision off the US coast, while travelling from Boston to New York in dense fog. It rammed into the port side of  Pan Royal , a US freighter.[6] Both ships suffered serious damage but were able to proceed under their own steam. Laconia returned to New York for repairs, and resumed cruising in 1935.

Drafted into war service
Australians manning a 6-inch gun, 22 March 1942On 4 September 1939, Laconia was requisitioned by the Admiralty and converted into an armed merchant cruiser. By January 1940 she had been fitted with eight six-inch guns and two three-inch high-angle guns. After trials off the Isle of Wight, she embarked gold bullion and sailed for Portland, Maine and Halifax, Nova Scotia on 23 January. She spent the next few months escorting convoys to Bermuda and to points in the mid-Atlantic, where they would join up with other convoys.

On 9 June, she ran aground in the Bedford Basin at Halifax, suffering considerable damage, and repairs were not completed till the end of July. In October her passenger accommodation was dismantled and some areas filled with oil drums to provide extra buoyancy so that she would stay afloat longer if torpedoed.

During the period June–August 1941 Laconia returned to St John, New Brunswick and was refitted, then returned to Liverpool to be used as a troop transport for the rest of the war. On 12 September 1941, she arrived at Bidston Dock, Birkenhead and was taken over by Cammell Laird and Company to be converted. By early 1942 the work was complete, and for the next six months she made trooping voyages to the Middle East. On one such voyage the ship was used to carry prisoners of war, mainly Italian. She travelled to Cape Town and then set a course for Freetown, following a zigzag course and undertaking evasive steering during the night.

Final moments
Laconia MenuMain article: Laconia incidentOn 12 September 1942, at 8:10 pm, 130 miles north-northeast of Ascension Island, Laconia was hit on the starboard side by a torpedo fired by U-boat  U-156 . There was an explosion in the hold and many of the Italian prisoners aboard were killed instantly. The vessel immediately took a list to starboard and settled heavily by the stern. Captain Sharp, who had also commanded another famous Cunard liner,  Lancastria  when she was sunk by enemy action, was gaining control over the situation when a second torpedo hit Number Two hold. At the time of the attack, the Laconia was carrying 268 British soldiers, 160 Polish soldiers (who were on guard), 80 civilians, and 1,800 Italian prisoners of war.[7]

Captain Sharp ordered the ship abandoned and the women, children and injured taken into the lifeboats first. By this time, the ship's stern deck was awash. Some of the 32 lifeboats had been destroyed by the explosions and some surviving Italian prisoners tried to rush the lowering of the ones that remained. The efforts of the Polish guards were instrumental in controlling the chaotic situation on board and saved many lives.[citation needed]

At 9:11 pm Laconiasank, stern first, her bow rising to be vertical, with Sharp himself and many of the Italian prisoners still on board. The prospects for those who escaped the ship were only slightly better; sharks were common in the area and the lifeboats were adrift in the mid-Atlantic with little hope of rescue. Boiler installation of the Laconia in 1922.However, before Laconia went down, U-156 surfaced. The U-boat's efforts to rescue survivors of its own attack began what came to be known as the Laconia incident.

When Kapitänleutnant Werner Hartenstein, commanding officer of U-156, realized civilians and prisoners of war were on board, he surfaced to rescue survivors,[8] and asked BdU (the U-Boat Command in Germany) for help. Several U-Boats were dispatched; all flew Red Cross flags, and signalled by radio that a rescue operation was underway.

The next morning, a U.S. B-24 Liberator plane sighted the rescue efforts.[9] Hartenstein signaled the pilot for assistance, who then notified the American base on Ascension Island of the situation. The senior officer on duty there, Robert C. Richardson III, unaware [10] that it was a Red Cross-sanctioned rescue operation, ordered that the U-boats be attacked. Despite the Red Cross flags, the survivors crowded on the submarines' decks and the towed lifeboats, the B-24 then started making attack runs on U-156. The Germans ordered their submarines to dive, abandoning many survivors. After the incident, Admiral Karl Dönitz issued the Laconia Order, henceforth ordering his commanders not to rescue survivors after attacks. Vichy French ships rescued 1,083 persons from the lifeboats and took aboard those picked up by the four submarines, and in all around 1,500 survived the sinking. Other sources state that only 1,104 survived and an estimated 1,649 persons died.

Amongst the French ships involved in the rescue were  Annamite ,  Dumont-d'Urville  and  Gloire .[11]

Media
On 6 and 7 January 2011, BBC2 in the United Kingdom broadcast The Sinking of the Laconia, a two-part dramatisation of the sinking of the Laconia.[12] Albert Walton Fleet Merchant Seaman with the Cunard Company was 18 years old when he was on board the Laconia and was picked up a few days later and taken prisoner of war with several other crew members. They were encarcerated somewhere in Morocco.