|
Alcides - Lillesund Sjomannsforening
Built By: Barclay Curle and Co, Whiteinch. Completed: 1930
Owner: Dampsk A/S, Eikland.
Tonnage: 7634 grt, 4853 nett
Length: 460.5 feet
Beam: 59.5 feet
Draught: 34.1 feet
Machinery: 1 x diesel engine
Speed: 11 knots
In Admiralty Service (Royal Fleet Auxiliary) from1941
May 1942 at Alexandra, Egypt with 250 refugees, including 66 Norwegians who had escaped via Russia. Picked up 19 members of the Australian Army and conveyed them to Port Said arriving on 24 May 1942.
11 July 1943 the ship sailed from Abadan bound for Fremantle with a cargo of fuel oil; she stopped briefly at Khor Kuwait to transfer 500 tons of fuel to Empire Taj, sailing later the same day. On the 23 July 1943 whilst sailing independently she was torpedoed by the Japanese submarine I10, at 04:45 hrs, no damage was apparent and the ship continued on passage until the early morning of the next day, when she encountered engine problems and the ship stopped to effect repairs.
At 10:30 hrs she was again underway, when she was hit by three more torpedoes, the ship sank quickly by the stern and the crew abandoned ship in two lifeboats.
The Japanese submarine had surfaced and ordered the lifeboats alongside, many armed Japanese sailors were observed on the deck of the submarine, and when the lifeboats eventually came alongside, the Captain, 2nd Mate and Radio Officer were taken aboard the I10, whilst they were being taken below deck, they heard the sound of machine gun and rifle fire from the upper deck. The survivors of the Alcides were butchered in their lifeboats, of those who died 12 had been missing when the ship was abandoned, in the lifeboats were 12 Norwegian, 32 Lascar, 1 Norwegian American and 1 Australian seamen and 3 British DEMS gunners who were never seen again.
One of those lost - Able Seaman Thomas Charles McCall is remembered with pride on the Plymouth Naval Memorial |
