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Here at LSOZI, we take a break every Wednesday to explore the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period, profiling a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

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Warship Wednesday, October 15, 2025: One Tough Cat

Above we see the armed merchant cruiser HMS Cheshire (F 18) in war paint at anchor at Greenock, 5 December 1942. Note her mixed battery of six 6-inch and two 3-inch guns arranged in tubs around her decks.

At the time, this grey lady had already caught and survived torpedoes from no less than two different U-boats and still had a lot of war left in her.

The Bibby 10,000 tonners

The Liverpool-based Bibby Line was founded in 1807 by the first John Bibby and continues to exist as one of the UK’s oldest family-owned shipping businesses. It’s Bibby Steam Ship Co., operating from 1891 with its flagship, the 3,870-ton Harland and Wolff-built SS Lancashire, recording the fastest time on the Burma run at 23 days and 20 hours.

Looking to grow and maintain its England to Burma service, Bibby ordered a new SS Lancashire, this one a stately 9,445-ton steamship, in 1914 from Harland & Wolff. Not completed until 1918 due to the Great War, her first cruises were in repatriating French prisoners of war and later Belgian refugees, as well as shuttling troops around the Empire before being released to her owners in 1920.

A sister, Yorkshire, was also constructed to a similar plan.

With peacetime accommodation for 295 1st class passengers in addition to mail and cargo, Lancashire proved popular, especially on lease to the Crown for delivering troops overseas, and a follow-on class of six near-sisters were soon ordered.

Ordered from Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company of Govan in Glasgow starting in 1925, MV Shropshire (Yard No. 619), followed by our MV Cheshire (620), MV Staffordshire (630), MV Worcestershire (640), MV Derbyshire (653), and MV Devonshire (670) were delivered by 1939.

While Lancashire/Yorkshire had been designed to run a coal plant (replaced by oil-fired boilers in a 1921 conversion), the new “Shires” would be run on two Sulzer 8-cyl (28, 39in) diesel engines from the start, with a speed pushing 14.5 knots, sustained. As such, these were the first Bibby liners to be motorships rather than steamships. Since the diesels were more compact and required no stokers, they freed up extra cargo and passenger space over the old design.

The design remained close enough to keep the same general dimensions (482 feet registered length vs 483) as Lancashire/Yorkshire, albeit a couple of feet wider (60 vs 57), which grew the displacement to 10,500 tons. To be certain, this continued to grow as the class was built out, with Staffordshire expanding to 62 feet across the beam, Worcestershire to 64, Derbyshire to 66, with the resulting heft in tonnage as well. Devonshire, the last of the class, would balloon to 12,796 tons.

They kept a similar 275 1st class passenger capacity as Lancashire/Yorkshire. This was arranged in two overall decks, a third deck below outside the engine room, and a forecastle, long bridge, and poop deck above. There were eight main bulkheads dividing the ship into two peaks, the engine room and six holds, four of them forward, and No. 4 abaft the bridge, worked by derricks on posts just forward of the single funnel, along with a 1,340 cu ft in a refrigerated hold. Boats included 10 26-foot lifeboats, two 22-foot accident boats, and two motor launches.

Crews were small for liners, hovering around 200, with British stewards quartered in the forecastle and Lascar seamen in the poop.

The passenger areas and cabins, to the “Bibby tandem” design, were much better appointed than on Lancashire, as shown by this circa 1930s pamphlet of Worcestershire:

They also had all the cutting-edge navigational gear of the era, including wireless direction finding and submarine signaling.

These half-dozen new 10,000-ton Shires, along with Lancashire and Yorkshire, graced Bibby’s posters and cards during the 1920s and 30s, with the line expanding regular service from Liverpool and Plymouth beyond Rangoon to Colombo and Cochin with assorted stops along the way.

Meet Cheshire

Our subject was Official Number 149625, Fairfield Yard No. 620, and built at Govan like her sisters, following class leader Shropshire by just 10 months when she was launched on the Clyde on 20 April 1927.

Cheshire finished fitting out and was delivered that July, with Bibby soon putting her into Far East service shortly after. In doing so, she replaced the smaller Bibby steamship SS Warwickshire, which had been in service for 25 years.

Her pre-war service was quiet, as one would expect. Her typical run was Liverpool to Rangoon via Gibraltar, Port Said, Port Sudan, and Colombo, a regular sea-going Agatha Christie novel. Between 1928 and 1934, she logged an impressive 447,361 miles.

Torpedo Bait

On 29 August 1939, just three short days before the Germans marched into Poland, Cheshire became one of ultimately 41 Royal Navy Armed Merchant Cruisers to see service in WWII (along with three each in the RAN and RCN).

This amounted to removing most of their superfluous peacetime appointments, reducing their masts and rigging, landing excess lifeboats, slapping on a coat of thick grey paint (later camouflaged), and adding a mixed battery of 6″/45 Mark VII/VIIIs left removed from Great War era battleships and cruisers (an amazing 629 of these were in storage in 1939), along with a couple of more modern 3″/50s and machine guns to dissuade low-flying aircraft.

Likewise, three of her sisters (Shropshire, Worcestershire, and Derbyshire) were similarly converted as AMCs, while the balance became troop carriers.

Cheshire was commissioned on 30 October, with the pennant number F18, and was tasked initially with patrolling the North Sea for German blockade runners.

Cheshire’s first convoy run was from Freetown, Sierra Leone, to Plymouth with Convoy SLF.16 for two weeks in January 1940, being the largest escort in the force of two destroyers and HM Severn, which were returning to duty in Home Waters.

February 1940 saw her as part of SL.20, shipping from Freetown to Plymouth in line with the AMC HMS Esperance Bay and four V-class destroyers.

In March, she rode shotgun with SL.24 from Freetown to Liverpool.

May 1940 saw her patrolling from Gibraltar off Vigo, Spain, with the destroyer HMS Keppel (D84), searching for German blockade runners, raiders, and U-boats.

It was during this duty that she rescued survivors from the torpedoed French cargo liner Brazza, sunk on 28 May by U-37. Working alongside the French gunboat Enseigne Henry, the two ships accounted for 52 crew members, 98 military passengers (56 French Navy, 17 French Army, and 25 Colonial Troops,) and 47 civilian passengers (20 men, 19 women, and eight children) from Brazza who survived the sinking. Another 379 were never recovered.

While deployed with the Western Approaches Defence Force on 16 August 1940, Cheshire spotted a prowling U-boat and birddogged the destroyer HMS Arrow (H 42).

Starting 7 October 1940, she and her fellow AMC, HMS Salopian (ex sister Shropshire, renamed as there was already a cruiser named Shropshire), was part of the first leg of an early “Winston’s Special” Convoy, WS 3 (Fast), leaving Liverpool with seven large 20,000-ton transports carrying troops to North Africa the long way round via Freetown and Cape Town.

On 8 October, the Orient Liner turned troopship Oronsay (20043 GRT) was damaged by Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condors of I./KG 40 off Ireland’s Bloody Foreland and forced to leave the convoy, escorted by Cheshire and the destroyers Arrow and Ottawa, which took her safely into Lough Foyle.

Returning to sea, at 21.28 on 14 October, Cheshire was promptly struck in her No.2 hold by one torpedo from U-137 (Kptlt. Herbert Wohlfarth), northwest of Ireland. The A-class destroyer HMCS Skeena (D 59) and Flower-class corvette HMS Periwinkle (K 55) embarked all 230 survivors from Cheshire and put parties on board to maintain steam until a tug arrived to take the damaged ship in tow for repair.

Cheshire was successfully towed to Belfast Lough, where she was beached. She was taken to Liverpool for repairs requiring six months.

The 10,000-ton Bibby liners were tough for sure. Sister HMS Worcestershire (F 29) likewise survived a torpedo from U-74 in March 1941, suffering but one casualty. She limped into port on her own power, was repaired, and back on the job in four months.

Sadly, sister Salopian/Shropshire succumbed to three fish from U-98 while off Greenland in April, but remarkably, only sent two of her crew to the bottom with their vessel, while the 278 survivors were landed in Iceland. Even more tragic, her half-sister, the Yorkshire, was also sunk off Cape Finisterre, via two torpedoes from U-37, just 10 weeks into the war, carrying passengers and cargo to Rangoon while still in merchant service. Yorktown carried 58 passengers and crew to the cold embrace of the Atlantic.

Following repairs, Cheshire joined Convoy SL 020F in February 1941 and SL 024 in March. A short run to Iceland, Convoy DS 3, escorting two troopships to the Allied-occupied island from Clyde, was tense but successful.

She continued her convoy escort work with Halifax to Liverpool HX 131 in June 1941, an 11-day crossing. The follow-up Liverpool to Halifax Convoy OB 335 finished up the month.

Convoy BHX.137 and HX 137 came in July 1941.

On 10 January 1942, Cheshire was tasked to escort Convoy WS.15 from Liverpool to embattled Singapore via Cape Town. With 24 steamers packed with troops and munitions, the escort amounted to our subject, the AMC Ascania, the old battleship HMS Resolution (09), the small Dutch cruiser Heemskerk, and a half dozen destroyers and sloops. The convoy suffered one loss, a freighter damaged by U-402 on 16 January, and was later forced to disperse once Singapore fell on 15 February, with the ships proceeding to Suez, Colombo, and Bombay as ordered.

It was during this trip, on 14 March 1942, while on patrol off Cape Town, that Cheshire stopped the German auxiliary minelayer and blockade runner Doggerbank (Schiff 53), which was the British freighter Speybank, which had been captured and converted by the Hilfskreuzer Atlantis in the Indian Ocean a year prior. Doggerbank, flying the ship’s old red duster, successfully identified herself as her sister ship, the Bank Line steamer Levenbank, and was allowed to proceed.

Cheshire can’t be blamed for the mistake; the Royal Navy’s D (Danae)-class light cruiser HMS Durban (D 99) had intercepted the wily Doggerbank two days before with the same result.

Ironically, her British lines would seal her fate, and Doggerbank/Speybank would later be sunk by one of the Kriegsmarine’s own U-boats, which was sure they were sinking an Allied merchant.

Getting back to escort duty, Cheshire rode with WS 19 during passage from Cape Town to Durban in June 1942.

Her final blue water convoy run as an AMC came with Freetown to Liverpool-bound SL 118, her fourth SL/MKS convoy, in August 1942. Amounting to 37 merchants escorted by 12 warships and Cheshire, the convoy had the misfortune of being haunted for a fortnight by the eight U-boats of Wolfpack Blücher, who claimed five of the merchants. Also damaged during this slow-running fight was Cheshire herself, who caught a single fish from a four-torpedo spread from U-214 (Kptlt. Günther Reeder) at 18.52 hours on 18 August.

Undeterred, Cheshire was able to make port on her own power, after all, she had been torpedoed before.

Repaired, she rode with the short coastwise Convoy FS.19 from Methil to Southend in May 1943, where she was paid off on 9 June 1943.

Her escort service as an AMC is remembered in maritime art by Jim Rae.

Troop service (and continued torpedo bait)

Post-Torch and Husky, and with the British fleet much reinforced with new escorts, Cheshire and her surviving sisters were returned to their owner, who operated them, still armed, with merchant crews as troopships under charter to the Ministry of War Transport.

On the eve of D-Day, HMT Cheshire joined Convoy ETP1 (sometimes also seen as EWP 1) in the Thames Estuary, where she met the fellow Bibby liners Lancashire (convoy commodore), Devonshire, and sister Worcestershire. Loaded with 10,000 troops of the train of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division and elements of the Second British Army, they arrived off Juno Beach on 7 June 1944.

Cheshire also had another brush with death on the sea when she sailed on Christmas Eve 1944, alongside the Belgian troopship Leopoldville, escorted by four destroyers, from Southampton across the English Channel to Cherbourg. The two troopships carried the bulk of the U.S. 66th “Black Panther” Infantry Division, and while Cheshire made it to Cherbourg unharmed with her charges, Leopoldville was sunk by U-486, taking 816 Belgian sailors, RN armed guards, and American soldiers with her to the bottom.

Shipping to the Far East in 1945, Cheshire both shuttled Commonwealth troops around the Pacific for occupation duty once Japan quit the war and carried former Allied POWs home. On 23 November, she brought the last Australian former POWs home from Singapore.

She also carried Dutch POWs to Java and Borneo. It was estimated that upwards of 80,000 troops rode Cheshire during the war.

Cheshire was further used for civilian repatriation services, for instance, carrying Gibraltar residents back home in September 1946 who had been evacuated to Northern Ireland in late 1940 when it looked like Spain might invade the colony.

Liner, again

On 5 October 1948, Cheshire was finally released to the owner and allowed to return to commercial service. She was overhauled and rebuilt as a rather spartan emigrant ship, with accommodation for 650 passengers, and three of her masts removed.

Thus minimally refurbished, she sailed on her first Liverpool to Sydney voyage on 9 August 1949, carrying Europeans fleeing war-shattered and Iron Curtain-divisioned Europe for the hope of a better life Down Under.

She would eventually return to trooping duties for the Korean War, able to carry a battalion at a time back and forth from the Peninsula to Europe.

Paid off for good at Liverpool in February 1957, she arrived at Newport on 11 July of that year for breaking by BISCO’s John Cashmore Ltd., having completed a very busy 30 years of service.

Epilogue

Of Cheshire’s sisters who survived the war, Staffordshire likewise returned to service with Bibby and was broken up in Japan in 1959.

Worcestershire lived long enough to be renamed Kannon Maru for her 1961 voyage to the breakers in Osaka.

Derbyshire was scrapped at Hong Kong in 1963.

Devonshire, used for trooping during WWII and Korea, was present at Operation Grapple, the joint U.S./British atomic bomb tests conducted at Christmas Island (Kiritimati/Kiribati) in 1957, having carried Royal Engineers and landing craft crews there to prepare the sites. Later converted to the school ship Devonia for the British India Steam Navigation Co., she was the last of her class disposed of, broken in La Spezia in 1967.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

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