HMT Rohna
From Our Contribution
 Indian Army troopship HMT Rohna at Colombo | |
 SS Rhona in Suez Canal with 7th Division troops for Kantara - AWM 004196 | |
| History | |
|---|---|
| Name | HMT Rohna |
| Owner | British India SN Co |
| Builder | Hawthorn Leslie, Hebburn, England |
| Yard number | 542 |
| Launched | 24 Aug 1926 |
| Completed | 5 Nov 1926 |
| Fate | sunk by air attack 26 Nov 1943 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | passenger / cargo |
| Tonnage | 8,602 tons |
| Length | 461.4 ft (140.6m) |
| Beam | 61.8 ft (18.8m) |
| Depth | 29.9 FT (10.06m) |
| Propulsion | 2 x quadruple expansion steam engines |
| Speed | 12.5 knots (23.15 km/h) |
| Capacity | 281 1st class; 33 2nd class; 100 3rd class; 3,851 deck passengers |
Remarks
Intended for the Madras – Nagapatam – Singapore route, Rohna spent her first six months of service taking military reinforcements to Shanghai. As a result, she did not start her intended service until June 1927. On 1 Nov 1927 she narrowly avoided being sunk or run ashore by a cyclone which struck Madras Harbour.
When the UK entered the War in September 1939 Rohna was in the Indian Ocean. Apart from a voyage from Karachi to Suez with Convoy K 4, Rohna operated unescorted between Rangoon and Madras until late November. On 10 Dec 1939 she left Bombay for the Mediterranean, passing through the Suez Canal on 20–21 December and reaching Marseille on 26 December. From 3 Jan 1940 until 10 March she operated unescorted between Marseille and the Port of Haifa. On 15 Mar 1940 Rohna returned through the Suez Canal to the Indian Ocean, where she operated between Bombay, Rangoon and Colombo until June 1940.
In May she was requisitioned as a troop ship and on 6 June she left Bombay for Durban. She then ran between Durban, Mombasa and Dar es Salaam until 28 July, when she left Mombasa for Bombay. Rohna took troops from Bombay to Suez in August 1940 in Convoy BN 3 and from Bombay to Port Sudan in September/October 1940. She made further trips from Bombay to Suez in November 1940, from Colombo to Suez in February 1941 and from Bombay to Singapore in March 1941. During the Anglo-Iraqi War in May the ship made two trips from Karachi to Basra. After the Allied victory in Iraq at the end of May she spent the rest of the year running between Basra and Bombay.
On 8 Dec 1941 Japan invaded Malaya, and a month later Rohna left Bombay for Singapore, arriving on 25 Jan 1942. She left a fortnight before Singapore surrendered to Japan. From March 1942 Rohna spent a year criss-crossing the Indian Ocean between Bombay, Karachi, Colombo, Basra, Aden, Suez, Khorramshahr, Bandar Abbas, Bahrain and Âbâdân. In March 1943 she sailed from Bombay to Aden and then to Suez, where she passed through the canal on 6–7 April. For the remainder of her career Rohna supported the North African Campaign, the Allied invasion of Sicily and the Allied invasion of Italy, initially between Alexandria, Tripoli and Sfax, and then between Alexandria, Malta, Tripoli, Augusta, Port Said, Bizerta and Oran.
On 25 Nov 1943 Rohna left Oran in French Algeria in company, and the convoy was attacked the following day by German heavy bombers and torpedo bombers. Rohna was the only casualty being hit by a rocket boosted glide bomb. The result was the largest loss of US personnel (1,015 of the total death toll - 1,138) at sea due to enemy action.
Troops Carried
Bombay to Kantara, Egypt 10 - 25 November 1940
Sailed 12 Nov 1940 with 2/16th Battalion aboard