HMS Osmanieh (1906)

HMS Osmanieh was a passenger and cargo ship that entered service in 1906. In 1916, the ship was requisitioned as a troopship and supply ship for the British Royal Navy in the First World War. On 31 December 1917, Osmanieh struck a mine laid by the Imperial German Naval U-boat SM UC-34 and sank at Alexandria, Egypt with the loss of 209 lives.[1][2]

Osmanieh
History
United Kingdom
Name
  • SS Osmanieh (1906–16)
  • HMS Osmanieh (1916–17)
OwnerKhedivial Mail Steamship & Graving Dock Co., Ltd
Port of registryUnited Kingdom Southampton
BuilderSwan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson
Yard number761
Launched9 May 1906
CompletedAugust 1906
IdentificationRegistration number: 123690
FateSunk by mine 31 December 1917
General characteristics
Typepassenger liner
Tonnage4,041 GRT
Length109.79 m (360.2 ft)
Beam13.77 m (45.2 ft)
Installed power650 NHP
Propulsionquadruple expansion steam engines
Speed17 knots (31 km/h)

The ship

The 4,041-ton steamship Osmanieh was built at the shipyard Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson in Wallsend. She was launched on 9 May 1906 and completed in August of that year. The 109.79-metre (360.2 ft)-long and 13.77 metres (45.2 ft)-wide ship had a maximum draught of 7.40 meters (24.3 ft) and was equipped with quadruple expansion steam engines, which acted on two propellers and had a maximum speed of 17 knots (31 km/h) enabled. The engines were rated at 650 nominal horsepower.[3]

Osmanieh was ordered for the British-Egyptian shipping company, Khedivial Mail Steamship & Graving Dock Co., Ltd., which had offices in London and Alexandria and the ship was designed as a combined passenger and cargo ship. The company was founded in 1898 to keep ships and ports in service for the Egyptian government. However, the ships sailed under the British flag and ran between Alexandria, Constantinople, Syria and other Mediterranean ports.[3]

In September 1915 she was used to transport the 22nd Battalion from the Greek island of Lemnos to Anzac Cove on the Gallipoli Peninsula.[4]

On 12 May 1916, Osmanieh was hired by the British Royal Navy as a Hired Transport (HT) for World War I military service and henceforth carried supplies and personnel. The ship was registered as Fleet Messenger No. 61 and received the Admiralty No. Y4.61.[3][5] On 23 June 1917 the ship evaded two torpedoes when it was attacked by a German submarine.[2]

Sinking
Commemorative plaque for nurses who died when HMS Osmanieh sank
Commemorative plaque for the nurses who died in the sinking

The day before, the troop-carrier HMT Aragon and the destroyer HMS Attack had been sunk with torpedoes at about the same spot by UC-34. 610 people died on Aragon and 10 on Attack. Some of the victims of these sinkings are buried at the Alexandria Hadra War Memorial Cemetery, where nameplates remain. However, several hundred were never found.[6]

On 17 December 1917, Osmanieh carrying soldiers and medical personnel left Southampton and set a course for Alexandria with a stopover in the southern Italian port city of Taranto. Taranto was reached on 28 December and Alexandria on 31 December. Even before the harbour entrance, the steamer was struck amidships on the starboard side at the position 31°10′8″N 29°48′3″E by a naval mine from a minefield left a few days earlier by the German submarine SM UC-34.[2]

The ship sank in five to seven minutes, killing 209 people including eight nurses.[2][7][8]

One of the survivors of the sinking of Osmanieh was Jack Cohen, then a member of the Royal Flying Corps. After the War he founded the British multinational retail chain Tesco.[9]

Notes
  1. Helgason 2017
  2. Wynn & Wynn 2017, p. 99
  3. Letters 2017
  4. Stephens, Greg (21 January 2017). "Troop Ships". Following the Twenty-Second: The First World War through the lives of the Australian Infantry Battalion. Retrieved 11 August 2021.
  5. Tennent 2006, p. 145
  6. Kindell 2011
  7. The Times 1918, p. 174
  8. "The sinking of the HMT "Osmanieh"". Imperial War Museums. Retrieved 19 September 2020.
  9. Ryle, Sarah (28 March 2013). The Making of Tesco: A Story of British Shopping. Transworld. ISBN 978-1-4481-2747-4.

References
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