HMAT A69 Warilda

HMAT A69 Warilda

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Wikipedia
History
Name	HMAT A69 Warilda
Owner	Adelaide Steamship Company
Builder	Wm Beardmore & Co Ltd, Dalmuir
Yard number	505
Launched	5 Nov 1911
Completed	1912
In service	1912
Out of service	1918
Fate	torpedoed 3 Aug 1918
General characteristics
Type	troopship / hospital ship
Tonnage	7,713 tons
Length	411.6 ft (125.46m)
Beam	56.7 ft (17.28m)
Depth	34.1 ft (10.39m)
Propulsion	twin screw
Speed	14.5 knots (26.85 kph)
Capacity	400 passengers

Remarks

Built for the Adelaide Steamship Company. Commenced passenger services out of Fremantle, Western Australia upon arrival in 1912. Capable of almost 400 passengers in three classes. She was converted into a troopship in August 1915 and made three journeys from Australia in this form. Converted again in 1916, this time to be a Hospital Ship controlled by the British Admiralty and she served as such from 25 Jul 1916 till 3 Aug 1918 on the Southampton-Le Havre run.

On 3rd August 1918 while transporting about 700 sick and wounded men from Le Havre to Southampton, the HS Warilda was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine UC-49. This was despite being marked clearly with the Red Cross; as with a number of other hospital ships torpedoed during the war, Germany claimed the ships were also carrying arms.

The ship sank in about two hours, and of the 801 persons on board, 123 people perished including 19 Australians and the Deputy Chief Controller of the Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corp, Mrs. Violet Long. Those lost at sea in the Channel are commemorated on the Hollybrook Memorial, Southampton.

Medical Staff

Fremantle to Plymouth 1 June - 18 July 1916

• Francis William Singleton

Soldiers carried

Fremantle to Port Tewfik 16 February - 13 March 1916

• Charles Blunt
• Sydney Chadwick McDonald
• Henry Herman Powell
• William Robert Rigby

Fremantle to Plymouth 1 June - 18 July 1916

Left Melbourne 25 May 1916

• Lyndon Vivian Brady
• Reginald Samuel Roquerbre Dutton

France to England 28 Jan 1917

• Charles Edward Parkin

Rouen to England 8 March 1917

• John Hugh Jones

Le Havre to England 3 May 1917

• Frank Halliday

France to England 25 May 1917

• Edward Patrick Thomas O'Brien

France to England 25 September 1917

• William Thomson

France to England 14 October 1917

• Edward Patrick Barker

France to England 14 March 1918

• John Harold Coffen

France to England 31 May 1918

• Harry Hodgson

Other Voyage

• 5 Oct - 5 November 1915 Brisbane to Port Tewfik, Egypt

15th Battalion and reinforcements for 9th Battalion.
1Oth reinforcements for 1st Battalion embarked in Sydney on 8 October.