laststandonzombieisland

The Union-Castle Line Royal Mail Motor Vessel Carnarvon Castle was built in 1925-26 by Harland & Wolff, Belfast (Yard No. 595), and at 20,122 GRT and 656 feet overall, was a beautiful ship. With two squat funnels (the foremost being a dummy for looks) she had accommodations for 310 first class, 275 second class, and 266 third class passengers and could make 18 knots.

Coming off a rebuild at Harland & Wolff in 1938 that saw her profile change to a single funnel, 30 feet added to her hull, a new accommodation plan for 699 passengers and a faster speed of 20 knots, it was a no-brainer that the Royal Navy tapped her for service as an armed merchant cruiser in September 1939, carrying eight 6-inch guns left over from scrapped Great War battleships, a pair of 3-inch DP mounts, and some Lewis guns.

Between 25 November 1939 and 21 November 1943, HMS Carnarvon Castle would ride shotgun on a dozen, mostly Sierra Leone-bound, convoys.

Carnarvon Castle, Armed Merchant Cruiser, WWII, By Artist Robert Lloyd

Some 85 years ago today, on 5 December 1940, she would encounter the German Hilfskreuzer Thor (AKA HSK 4, Schiff 10, and Raider E) which was arguably slower (17 knots) but better armed (6x Krupp 5.9″/45s, 4x37mm, 4x20mm Flak, 4x torpedo tubes, mines) and better prepared, having already sunk seven Allied ships and captured one already on her cruise.

The fight would last five hours.

As detailed in “Ocean Liners” by Philip J Fricker:

The Captain had learnt by an intercepted wireless message that the AMC was in the vicinity and hoped to avoid her. However, on 5 December, a large vessel loomed up out of the mist when the Thor was about 550 miles south of Rio and signaled the Thor to stop. (The latter at the time was disguised as a Yugoslav ship.) The British AMC then fired a warning shot, and, realizing he could no longer avoid an engagement, the German captain hoisted his battle ensign and opened fire at a range of about 14,000 yards.

According to the German account, the sun broke through spasmodically, and the British ship was silhouetted against the misty horizon, making a larger target. An enemy shell damaged her electrical control gear early in the action, and guns had to be fired independently by hand control. Nevertheless, the British ship kept up a good, slightly irregular, rate of fire. The Thor kept up a steady fire and also fired a couple of torpedoes, which missed.

By 0844 range had been reduced to about 8,000 yards, and the British AMC had been hit several times. There were several outbreaks of fire on board, and the internal communication had been badly disabled. Accordingly, the ship turned to port and sailed off in a northerly direction to try to control the fires. Having no wish to reopen the engagement, the Thor made off to the eastward. She had expended no fewer than 593 rounds of ammunition, about 70 per cent of her supply, and had escaped damage.

The British ship had not been so fortunate. Twenty-seven enemy shells had found a mark, and her casualties numbered four killed and 28 wounded. The fires were eventually put out, and the ship set a course for Montevideo, where she arrived on 7 December. Some plates salvaged from the wreck of the Graf Spee were used to patch her hull. The Carnarvon Castle later crossed to Cape Town for full repairs.

The skipper of the Thor, Captain Otto Kähler, reported no damage to his ship. It had been Thor’s second gunnery duel with a British Armed Merchant Cruiser, the first being on 28 July 1940 with HMS Alcantara, also a former Union Castle Liner.

On 4 April 1941, Thor engaged and sank HMS Voltaire, the third British Armed Merchant Cruiser she met, in a battle that left 99 British sailors dead and 197 as POWs, underlining just how well Carnarvon Castle had fought the year before, especially when you consider that Voltaire had the same armament as Carnarvon Castle.

Thor arrived in German-occupied France on 23 April 1941 after a 329-day and 57,532-mile war patrol, then seven months later, with new guns, an Arado scout plane, and radar, would venture out on a second one of 321 days that would end in Japan.

As for Carnarvon Castle, she would be converted to trooping duties in late 1943 and survive the war.

Returned to commercial use in 1947, she would be refitted for the emigrant trade and would continue to sail until 1963, when she was scrapped, having served a long and varied 37-year career.