SS ''Clan Chisholm'' was a British cargo steamship. She was

torpedo A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, and with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, s ...

ed and sunk in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

while carrying cargo from

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to th ...

Building

''Clan Chisholm'' was one of the

Clan Line The Clan Line was a passenger and cargo shipping company that operated in one incarnation or another from the late nineteenth century and into the twentieth century. History Foundation and early years The company that would become the Clan Lin ...

's s, built by the Greenock & Grangemouth Dockyard Co Ltd,

Greenock Greenock (; sco, Greenock; gd, Grianaig, ) is a town and administrative centre in the Inverclyde council area in Scotland, United Kingdom and a former burgh within the historic county of Renfrewshire, located in the west central Lowlands of ...

and launched on 5 August 1937. She was registered in

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated pop ...

. ''Chisholm'' had a pair of three-cylinder steam triple expansion engines and a pair of low pressure

steam turbines A steam turbine is a machine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Charles Parsons in 1884. Fabrication of a modern steam turbi ...

, all built by J.G. Kincaid & Co of Greenock. Each turbine was powered by exhaust steam from the low-pressure cylinder of one of the piston engines. The combined power output of this plant was rated at 1,043 NHP. She was propelled by twin screws, each driven by one triple-expansion engine and one turbine.

Final voyage and sinking

On 3 September 1939, the day that the UK declared war on Germany, ''Chisholm'' was crossing the

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line bet ...

from

Chittagong Chittagong ( /ˈtʃɪt əˌɡɒŋ/ ''chit-uh-gong''; ctg, চিটাং; bn, চিটাগং), officially Chattogram ( bn, চট্টগ্রাম), is the second-largest city in Bangladesh after Dhaka and third largest city in B ...

in Bengal to

Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Tamil Nadu, the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and territories of India, Indian state. The largest city ...

in India, where she arrived on 5 September. On 9 September she sailed for

carrying 3,300 tons of tea, 1,900 tons of

jute Jute is a long, soft, shiny bast fiber that can be spun into coarse, strong threads. It is produced from flowering plants in the genus ''Corchorus'', which is in the mallow family Malvaceae. The primary source of the fiber is ''Corchorus olit ...

, 1,750 tons of

pig iron Pig iron, also known as crude iron, is an intermediate product of the iron industry in the production of steel which is obtained by smelting iron ore in a blast furnace. Pig iron has a high carbon content, typically 3.8–4.7%, along with sil ...

and 2,600 tons of general cargo. Her Master was Francis Stenson. ''Chisholm'' crossed the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by ...

, calling at

Tuticorin Thoothukudi (formerly Tuticorin) is a port city, a municipal corporation and an industrial city in Thoothukudi district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The city lies in the Coromandel Coast of Bay of Bengal. Thoothukudi is the capital a ...

on 13 September,

Colombo Colombo ( ; si, කොළඹ, translit=Koḷam̆ba, ; ta, கொழும்பு, translit=Koḻumpu, ) is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. According to the Brookings Institution, Colombo me ...

Ceylon Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

overnight on the 14–15th, Aden on the 23rd and

Suez Suez ( ar, السويس '; ) is a seaport city (population of about 750,000 ) in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez (a branch of the Red Sea), near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal, having the same b ...

on the 30th. She passed through the Suez Canal to

Port Said Port Said ( ar, بورسعيد, Būrsaʿīd, ; grc, Πηλούσιον, Pēlousion) is a city that lies in northeast Egypt extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, north of the Suez Canal. With an approximate population of ...

where she joined Convoy Blue 3, which sailed on 1 October and reached Gibraltar on the 11th. There she joined Convoy HG 3 which sailed on 13 October and was to take her as far as

Liverpool Liverpool is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the List of English districts by population, 10th largest English district by population and its E ...

. On the evening of 17 October , commanded by ''

Kapitänleutnant ''Kapitänleutnant'', short: KptLt/in lists: KL, ( en, captain lieutenant) is an officer grade of the captains' military hierarchy group () of the German Bundeswehr. The rank is rated OF-2 in NATO, and equivalent to Hauptmann in the Heer an ...

'' Herbert Schultze, sighted ''Chisholm'' under way some northwest of

Cape Finisterre Cape Finisterre (, also ; gl, Cabo Fisterra, italic=no ; es, Cabo Finisterre, italic=no ) is a rock-bound peninsula on the west coast of Galicia, Spain. In Roman times it was believed to be an end of the known world. The name Finisterre, like ...

. At 2032 hrs Schultze hit ''Chisholm'' with a torpedo that failed to explode. At 2035 he hit her with a second torpedo, which detonated. ''Chisholm'' sank in a few minutes and four crew members were killed. Captain Stenson and 41 other survivors were rescued by the Swedish cargo ship and landed at

Kirkwall Kirkwall ( sco, Kirkwaa, gd, Bàgh na h-Eaglaise, nrn, Kirkavå) is the largest town in Orkney, an archipelago to the north of mainland Scotland. The name Kirkwall comes from the Norse name (''Church Bay''), which later changed to ''Kirkv ...

. Another 17 were picked up by the Norwegian whaling ship ''Skudd'', and the remaining 15 were rescued by the Union-Castle Line ship .

Replacement ship

In 1944 the same shipbuilder, Greenock Dockyard Co Ltd, completed a replacement for Clan Line. Compared with her predecessor, the new ''Chisholm'' had almost the same length and beam, a pair of Kincaid triple-expansion engines of the same dimensions and with the same arrangement of feeding exhaust steam to low-pressure turbines. However, her depth was , which was greater than her predecessor. Her GRT was 9,581, which was 2,325 tons bigger than her predecessor. She survived the war but later suffered a fire and in August 1962 was scrapped in Hong Kong.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Clan Chisholm 1937 ships Cameron-class steamships Ships built on the River Clyde Maritime incidents in October 1939 Ships of the Clan Line Ships sunk by German submarines in World War II Steamships of the United Kingdom World War II merchant ships of the United Kingdom World War II shipwrecks in the Atlantic Ocean