HMT Royal Edward Sinks Killing 864 People

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HMT Royal Edwardg

HMT Royal Edward was a passenger ship belonging to the Canadian Northern Steamship Company.  She had previously been known as RMS Cairo when she was launched in 1907 for a British mail service to Egypt.

On 13 August 1915, Royal Edward passed the British hospital ship Soudan, which was headed in the opposite direction.  von Heimburg on the German submarine UB-14 was off the island of Kandeloussa and saw both ships.

Von Heimburg, seeing the properly identified hospital ship, allowed Soudan to pass unmolested, but soon focused his attention on the unescorted Royal Edward some 6 nautical miles off Kandeloussa.  Von Heimburg launched one of UB-14’s two torpedoes from a about a mile away and hit Royal Edward in the stern.  The ship sank by the stern within six minutes.

An admiralty casualty list, published in The Times in September 1915, named 13 officers and 851 troops as missing believed drowned, a total of 864 lost.

Source: Wikipedia

1 COMMENT

  1. Regarding the Royal Edward you appear to have ignored the 127 memembers of the crew who also died when she sank. What was the reason for this, I would dearly like to know,
    Norman

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