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SS Amsterdam (1930)

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For other ships with the same name, see SS Amsterdam.

History
United Kingdom
Name
  • 1930–1941: TSS Amsterdam
  • 1941–1944: HMHS Amsterdam
Operator
BuilderJohn Brown, Clydebank
Yard number529
Launched30 January 1930
IdentificationUK Official Number: 161037
FateStruck a mine and sank, 7 August 1944
General characteristics
Tonnage4,220 gross register tons (GRT)
Length350.8 feet (106.9 m)
Beam50.1 feet (15.3 m)
Depth26 feet (7.9 m)

TSS Amsterdam was a passenger and freight vessel built for the London and North Eastern Railway in 1930.

History

The ship was built by John Brown on Clydebank. She was one of an order for three ships, the others being Vienna and Prague. She was launched on 30 January 1930.

On 14 October 1932, she brought Prince George, Duke of Kent back from his tour of Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands.

War Service

In September 1939, at the outbreak of the Second World War, the ship was requisitioned by the Ministry of War Transport for troop transport. This included transporting the 51st Highland Division and Princess Louise's Kensington Regiment from Southampton to Le Havre in April 1940 as part of the British Expeditionary Force.

By 1944, she had been converted to a LSI(H) - Landing Ship Infantry (Hand-hoisting). She carried elements of the United States 2nd Ranger Battalion to Pointe du Hoc on D-day.

By 19 July 1944, she had been converted to a Hospital Carrier ship. On 7 August 1944, she was sunk by a mine while taking casualties from Juno Beach, Calvados, France. A total of 55 patients, ten Royal Army Medical Corps staff, 30 crew and eleven prisoners of war were killed.

Seventy five wounded soldiers were carried up and delivered into lifeboats, but two of the nurses, Dorothy Field, 32, and Mollie Evershed, 27, went back below and went down with the ship. They are the only two women whose names are on the British Normandy Memorial, with 22,000 men.

See also

References

  1. Duckworth, Christian Leslie Dyce; Langmuir, Graham Easton (1968). Railway and other Steamers. Prescot, Lancashire: T. Stephenson and Sons.
  2. "The Prince's Return". Derby Daily Telegraph. England. 14 October 1932. Retrieved 6 November 2015 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  3. http://forums.clydemaritime.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=7462
  4. Gardner, Robert (29 February 2012). Kensington to St Valery en Caux: Princess Louise's Kensington Regiment, France and England, Summer 1940. History Press. ISBN 978-0-7524-8361-0.
  5. Page 614. Sand and Steel: The D-Day Invasions and the Liberation of France. By Peter Caddick-Adams. Oxford University Press, 2019
  6. http://forums.clydemaritime.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=7462
  7. wartimememoriesproject.com/ww2/ships/ship.php?pid=6121
  8. "HMS Amsterdam II [+1944]". wrecksite.eu. Retrieved 8 October 2013.
  9. Haws, Duncan (1993). Britain's Railway Steamers – Eastern and North Western Companies + Zeeland and Stena. Merchant Fleets. Vol. 25. Hereford: TCL Publications. ISBN 0-946378-22-3.
  10. "Fallen Heroes of Normandy | Detail".
  11. "Hospital ships photographs".
  12. "Missing presumed dead - Lost at sea".
  13. "Two female nurses honoured among 22,000 men". BBC News.
  14. "Sister Mollie Evershed | War Casualty Details | CWGC".
  15. "The War Years | Harwich & Dovercourt | History, Facts & Photos of Harwich".
  16. British Normandy Memorial (3 April 2020). "Sister Mollie Evershed". Facebook.
Ships operated by the London and North Eastern Railway
Ex GCR ships
Ex GER ships
Ships built for, or
acquired by, the LNER
Humber Ferries
Shipwrecks and maritime incidents in August 1944
Shipwrecks
Other incidents
1943 1944 1945
July 1944 September 1944


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