SS Hoihow
| History | |
|---|---|
| File:Civil Ensign of the United Kingdom.svgUnited Kingdom | |
| Name | SS Hoihow |
| Owner | China Navigation Company Ltd., London |
| Builder | Taikoo Dockyard & Engineering Company of Hong Kong Ltd., Hong Kong |
| Completed | 1933 |
| Fate | Sunk 2 July 1943 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | Passenger ship |
| Tonnage | 2,798 gross register tons |
| Propulsion | Steam engine |
SS Hoihow was a British passenger ship built in 1933 in Hong Kong by the Taikoo Dockyard & Engineering Company of Hong Kong Ltd. in 1933 for The China Navigation Company of London[1] to operate on the Indochina trade.[citation needed][2]
During World War II, Hoihow was used to carry food to the United Kingdom.[citation needed]
At 02:00 on 1 July 1943, the German submarine U-181 sighted three Allied merchant ships – Hoihow, under Master William Mackensie Christie, among them – in port at Port Louis, Mauritius. U-181′s commanding officer, Korvettenkapitän Wolfgang Lüth, decided to loiter offshore and wait for them to leave port. On the morning of 2 July 1943, two of them put to sea, and U-181 set out in pursuit of the second to leave, which was Hoihow. After a 10-hour chase, at 21:07 on 2 July U-181 hit Hoihow with two torpedoes in the Indian Ocean 105 nautical miles (194 km) north-northwest of Mauritius. Hoihow sank by the bow at Lua error: callParserFunction: function "#coordinates" was not found. with the loss of 145 of the 149 people aboard, including Christie, 90 crew members, seven naval gunners, and 47 passengers. The four survivors – three crew members and a passenger – were rescued by the American merchant ship SS Mormacswan, which put them ashore at Montevideo, Uruguay, on 25 July 1943.[1]
References
[edit | edit source]- ^ a b Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ The archives of John Swire & Sons Ltd (including the papers of the Taikoo Dockyard and the China Navigation Company Ltd) are held at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, http://www.soas.ac.uk/library/archives/
