SS Tuscania

1918

North Channel, the first American troopship Location: North Channel, off Rathlin Island, Scotland · Coordinates: 55.55°N 6.50°W · Casualties: 210 · Survivors: ~2,100 · Depth: 123 m · Cause: submarine torpedo — Torpedoed by the German submarine SM UB-77 (Wilhelm Meyer, commanding) in the North Channel off Rathlin Island at 17:40 on 5 February 1918. Single torpedo to the engine room. Sank in under two hours. · Fate: war grave · protected · Type: troopship · former Anchor Line liner · Tonnage: 14,348 tons · Crew: 384 · Flag: United Kingdom · Anchor Line · Launched: 1914 Anchor Line transatlantic liner converted to a troop transport, carrying American Expeditionary Force reinforcements to France. Torpedoed by UB-77 in the North Channel off Rathlin Island at 17:40 on 5 February 1918. The first American troopship torpedoed in the war. 210 dead, including 166 American soldiers, and the Islay crofters who buried the bodies of the American dead became local heroes. The Vessel The SS Tuscania was an Anchor Line passenger ship, commissioned at the Alexander Stephen and Sons yard at Linthouse, Glasgow, on 15 November 1914. She was 168 metres long, 14,348 gross tons, with triple-expansion steam propulsion on twin screws and a service speed of 17 knots. She was designed for the Anchor Line's Glasgow-New York route, carrying primarily Scottish and Irish emigrants to America in tourist and third-class accommodations. At the outbreak of the First World War she had been requisitioned only briefly by the Admiralty before being returned to commercial service. By late 1917 she had been requisitioned again as an Allied troop transport, specifically for the movement of American Expeditionary Forces to France as part of the United States' late entry into the war on 6 April 1917. Her master in January 1918 was Captain Peter McLean, 54, a career Anchor Line mariner. Her crew was 215 officers and ratings. Her operational role from late 1917 forward was exclusively as a troop transport for the AEF. The Disaster The torpedo detonation breached Tuscania's engine room and ruptured her steam system. Her main engines stopped within 30 seconds of the strike; her electrical power was lost; her pumps were inoperable. She began listing immediately to starboard. Captain McLean ordered the abandon-ship signal at 18:00 on 5 February 1918. The evacuation of the 2,400 troops and crew aboard was conducted in conditions of increasing darkness and deteriorating weather. The specific difficulty was the distribution of lifeboat spaces: the Tuscania had been designed for approximately 1,000 passengers and her lifeboat capacity (sufficient for 1,200) was substantially below her actual troop complement of 2,400. Many of the AEF troops had to enter the freezing water of the North Channel to reach the arriving British destroyers. SS Tuscania sank at approximately 21:20 on 5 February 1918 at approximately 55°30′N 5°58′W in approximately 120 metres of water. Over the following three hours, approximately 2,100 survivors were pulled from the water by HMS Grasshopper, HMS Pigeon, HMS Mosquito, and other British destroyers responding to the sinking. Of 2,397 aboard, 210 died: 166 American soldiers, 44 British ship's crew. The majority of the 166 American dead had died of exposure in the water rather than in the initial torpedo explosion; the water temperature in the North Channel that night was approximately 6°C, and many troops had been in the water for more than 30 minutes before being rescued.