SS Transylvania (1914)

SS Transylvania was a passenger liner of the Anchor Line, a subsidiary of the Cunard Line and a sister ship to SS Tuscania. She was torpedoed and sunk on 4 May 1917 by the German U-boat SM U-63 at 44°15′N 8°30′E while carrying Allied troops to Egypt and sank with a loss of 412 lives.

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

RMS Transylvania
History
United Kingdom
Name: SS Transylvania
Owner:
Builder: Scotts, Greenock & Grangemouth Dockyard Co. Ltd., Greenock, Scotland
Launched: 23 May 1914
Fate: Sunk by German U-boat U-63, 4 May 1917
General characteristics
Tonnage: 14,348 GRT
Length: 548.3 ft (167.1 m)
Beam: 66.6 ft (20.3 m)
Draught: 42 ft (13 m)
Installed power:
Propulsion: Twin screws
Speed: 17.5 knots (32.4 km/h)
Capacity:
  • 1,379 passengers, as built
  • 3,060, as troopship

Completed just before the outbreak of World War I, Transylvania was taken over for service as a troopship upon completion. She was designed to accommodate 1,379 passengers but the Admiralty fixed her capacity at 200 officers and 2,860 men, besides crew, when she was commissioned in May 1915.[1]

Loss

On 3 May 1917, Transylvania sailed from Marseille to Alexandria with a full complement of troops, escorted by the Japanese destroyers Matsu and Sakaki.

At 10 am on 4 May Transylvania was struck in the port engine room by a torpedo fired by the German U-boat SM U-63 under the command of Otto Schultze. At the time the ship was about 2.5 miles (2.2 nmi; 4.0 km) south of Cape Vado near Savona, in the Gulf of Genoa. Matsu came alongside Transylvania and began to take on board troops while Sakaki circled to force the submarine to remain submerged.

Twenty minutes later a second torpedo was seen coming straight for Matsu, which saved herself by going astern at full speed. The torpedo hit Transylvania instead, which sank immediately. Ten crew members, 29 army officers and 373 soldiers lost their lives.

Many bodies of victims were recovered at Savona and buried two days later, in a special plot in the town cemetery. Others are buried elsewhere in Italy, France, Monaco and Spain. Savona Town Cemetery contains 85 Commonwealth burials from the First World War, all but two of them casualties from Transylvania. Within the cemetery is the Savona Memorial which commemorates a further 275 casualties who died when Transylvania sank, but whose graves are unknown.[2]

Transylvania was discovered by the Italian Carabinieri on 7 October 2011 off the coast of the island of Bergeggi at an approximate depth of 630 metres (2,070 ft).

Notes
  1. "ss TRANSYLVANIA". Clydebuilt Ships Database. Archived from the original on 7 January 2006. Retrieved 18 June 2008.CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  2. "Roll of Honour - Bedfordshire - Silsoe". Roll-of-Honour.com. Roll-of-Honour.com. Retrieved 18 June 2008.
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