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The Manchester Regiment: Troopships Used In Malaya - Part 1 - SS Empire Trooper SS Empire Orwell - With Video

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Subject :The Manchester Regiment: Troopships used in Malaya - Part 1 - SS Empire Trooper SS Empire Orwell - with Video
Published By : None 
Location : Malaya
Estimated Year : 1951
Media Type : Photograph
Source : Tom Turnbull & John Harding, Australia
Remark :

This series of photographs shows two transport ships that were used at one time or another to bring the Manchester Regiment to Malaya.

From left to right the photographs show:

  • The SS Empire Trooper was a 14,106 GRT ocean liner which was built by Vulkan Werke, in Hamburg, Germany. The ship was completed in 1922 as the Cap Norte for the Hamburg Südamerikanische Dampfschifffahrts-Gesellschaft (Hamburg South American Line). Chartered in 1932 to Norddeutscher Lloyd (North German Lloyd) she was renamed the Sierra Salvada.

    In 1934 she was returned to Hamburg Süd and renamed the Cap Norte. When the Second World War was declared, she was homeward bound from Pernambuco, Brazil. Her passengers were disembarked in Lisbon. She was painted to represent a Swedish ship, carrying Swedish colours and renamed the Ancona.

    She sailed for Germany via a circuitous route but was spotted on 9 October 1939 by HMS Belfast North West of the Faroe Islands in rough weather. Her captain surrendered her and she was escorted to Scapa Flow and used as a blockship (A blockship is a ship deliberately sunk to prevent a river, channel, or canal from being used.)

    In 1940 she was renamed the Empire Trooper and converted to a troopship, she was damaged on 25 December 1940 by shelling from Admiral Hipper. The SS Empire Trooper was scrapped in September 1955 at Inverkeithing, Fife, Scotland.

  • The SS Empire Orwell was a 17,362 GRT liner which was built by Blohm & Voss, Hamburg, Germany. She was launched on 16 July 1936 as the Pretoria for the German East Africa Line. Her maiden voyage to Cape Town started on 19 December 1936, but she ran aground at East Lepe, in the Solent.

    She was undamaged and later refloated and in 1939 she was requisitioned by the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) and used as a submarine depot ship. Converted to a hospital ship in 1940, she was captured by the British in May 1945 at Copenhagen, Denmark.

    The British renamed her Empire Doon and she was converted to a troopship at Newcastle upon Tyne. The Empire Doon was renamed the Empire Orwell on completion of refit in January 1950. She then served as a troopship during the Suez crisis in 1956, landing troops in Cyprus and evacuating troops from the Canal Zone.

    Withdrawn in December 1957 she was laid up at Isle of Portland and chartered in 1958 to Pan-Islamic Steamship Co, Karachi, then sold later that year to Ocean Steamship Co, Liverpool. She was sold in 1962 to the Indonesian Government and renamed the KRI Tanjung Pandan, with pennant number 971. Laid up in 1981 in Tanjung Priok as an accommodation vessel she met her end when she was sold in 1987 to shipbreakers in Taiwan.

    • To go to Part 2, click here

    To learn more about the Manchester Regiment, click here.

    The following video was taken, not by the Manchesters but by a civilian Michael Rogge. He gave it the titke "On board Empire Orwell returning from Singapore 1952. It is interesting to see that while on board the British troops had to work at painting the ship. Much better to be a bandsman ot a civilian!

    Filename : 20100224-005