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, with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, such ...

ed and sunk in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

while carrying cargo from

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

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 (; ; , ) is a town in Inverclyde, Scotland, located in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. The town is the administrative centre of Inverclyde Council. It is a former burgh within the historic county of Renfrewshire, and forms ...

and launched on 5 August 1937. She was registered in

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

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

steam turbines A steam turbine or steam turbine engine is a machine or heat engine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work utilising a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Sir Charles Par ...

, 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. Geographically it is positioned between the Indian subcontinent and the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese peninsula, located below the Bengal region. Many South Asian and Southe ...

from

Chittagong Chittagong ( ), officially Chattogram, (, ) (, or ) is the second-largest city in Bangladesh. Home to the Port of Chittagong, it is the busiest port in Bangladesh and the Bay of Bengal. The city is also the business capital of Bangladesh. It ...

in Bengal to

Madras Chennai, also known as Madras ( its official name until 1996), is the capital and largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India. It is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. According to the 2011 Indian ce ...

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, rough, shiny bast fibre that can be Spinning (textiles), spun into coarse, strong threads. It is produced from flowering plants in the genus ''Corchorus'', of the mallow family Malvaceae. The primary source of the fiber is ...

, 1,750 tons of

pig iron Pig iron, also known as crude iron, is an intermediate good used by the iron industry in the production of steel. It is developed by smelting iron ore in a blast furnace. Pig iron has a high carbon content, typically 3.8–4.7%, along with si ...

and 2,600 tons of general cargo. Her

Master Master, master's or masters may refer to: Ranks or titles In education: *Master (college), head of a college *Master's degree, a postgraduate or sometimes undergraduate degree in the specified discipline *Schoolmaster or master, presiding office ...

was Francis Stenson. ''Chisholm'' crossed the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

, calling at

Tuticorin Thoothukudi (formerly called Tuticorin) is a port industrial city in Thoothukudi district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It lies on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. The city is capital and headquarters of the district. ...

on 13 September,

Colombo Colombo, ( ; , ; , ), is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. The Colombo metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of 5.6 million, and 752,993 within the municipal limits. It is the ...

Ceylon Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

overnight on the 14–15th,

Aden Aden () is a port city located in Yemen in the southern part of the Arabian peninsula, on the north coast of the Gulf of Aden, positioned near the eastern approach to the Red Sea. It is situated approximately 170 km (110 mi) east of ...

on the 23rd and

Suez Suez (, , , ) is a Port#Seaport, seaport city with a population of about 800,000 in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez on the Red Sea, near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal. It is the capital and largest c ...

on the 30th. She passed through the

Suez Canal The Suez Canal (; , ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, Indo-Mediterranean, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia (and by extension, the Sinai Peninsula from the rest ...

Port Said Port Said ( , , ) is a port city that lies in the northeast Egypt extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, straddling the west bank of the northern mouth of the Suez Canal. The city is the capital city, capital of the Port S ...

where she joined Convoy Blue 3, which sailed on 1 October and reached

Gibraltar Gibraltar ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory and British overseas cities, city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the A ...

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 port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

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

Kapitänleutnant , short: KptLt/in lists: KL, ( or ''lieutenant captain'') is an officer grade of the captains' military hierarchy group () of the modern German . The rank is rated Ranks and insignia of NATO navies' officers, OF-2 in NATO, and equivalent to i ...

Herbert Schultze Herbert Emil Schultze (24 July 1909 – 3 June 1987) was a German U-boat (submarine) commander of the ''Kriegsmarine'' (the German navy in World War II). He commanded for eight patrols during the early part of the war, sinking of shipping. Schu ...

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

Cape Finisterre Cape Finisterre (, also ; ; ) 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 that of Finistère in France, derives from the Latin , mean ...

. 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 (, , or ; ) is the largest town in Orkney, an archipelago to the north of mainland Scotland. First mentioned in the ''Orkneyinga saga'', it is today the location of the headquarters of the Orkney Islands Council and a transport hub wi ...

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

Union-Castle Line The Union-Castle Line was a British shipping line that operated a fleet of passenger liners and cargo ships between Europe and Africa from 1900 to 1977. It was formed from the merger of the Union Line and Castle Shipping Line. It merged with ...

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