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SS Ranchi
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| Career Britain |  |
|---|---|
| Builder: | Hawthorn Leslie and Company Newcastle upon Tyne |
| Laid down: | |
| Launched: | 24 January 1925 |
| Acquired: | August 1939 |
| Commissioned: | 23 October 1939 |
| Decommissioned: | July 1947 |
| Out of service: | 16 March 1943 |
| Reclassified: | Armed merchant cruiser |
| Status: | scrapped Newport Gwent, 1953 |
| General Characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 16,738 gross register tons |
| Length: | 547 feet |
| Beam: | 71 feet |
| Propulsion: | steam engine |
| Speed: | 17 knots |
| Complement: | |
| Armament: | 8 x 6 in (152 mm) 2 x 3 in (76 mm) (76.2 mm) |
The SS Ranchi was a British passenger and cargo carrying ocean liner. During World War Two she served as an armed merchant cruiser HMS Ranchi.
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The SS Ranchi was built for the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O) by Hawthorn Leslie & Co. at Newcastle Upon Tyne, England and was launched on 24 January 1925. She weighed 16,650 gross registered tons, her length was 547 feet and her beam 71 feet.
Named after Ranchi, the capital city of Jharkhand state in eastern India, she sailed on a regular route between England and Bombay, India. Later she sailed to the Far East. She carried 600 passengers.
The SS Ranchi was requisitioned into the British Navy on 27 August 1939 (at the onset of World War Two) and commissioned on 23 October 1939 as the armed merchant cruiser HMS Ranchi (Pennant F15). As an armed merchant cruiser she weighed 16,738 tons.
Her sister ships SS Rawalpindi, SS Rajputana and SS Ranpura were also converted to armed merchant cruisers. Except for small corvettes, the converted passenger ships like the HMS Ranchi were the only armed protection for most of the early convoys. With their six-inch guns, they were the only escorts that could engage German surface ships. Very few convoys received the protection of the larger cruisers or battleships.
From October 1939 until February 1942 she served the East Indies Station; from March 1942 until January 1943 she was part of the Eastern Fleet (Indian Ocean). She was returned and use as a troopship by the Ministry of War Transport (MoWT) on 16 March 1943.
Two months after the end of World War II in the Pacific, in October 1945 the Ranchi sailed from Singapore to Southampton carrying amongst others released prisoners of war and civilian internees recently liberated from Japanese camps. Hilda Bates, who had been interned in Batu Lintang camp at Kuching, Borneo, wrote on 23 October 1945: "We are now speeding towards England aboard the S.S. Ranchi, which is packed with troops and other ex P.O.W.s like ourselves ... In our cabin there are twelve women, - five of who[m] are returning home as widows.' [1]
On 18 July 1947 the SS Ranchi was returned to her owners, P&O.
SS Ranchi was broken up in Newport, Gwent, Wales in 1953.
The P&O liner SS Canberra doubled for SS Ranchi in the final episode of Tenko, the popular BBC TV series about women civilian internees in the Far East in 1984. [1]
- ^ Ooi, Keat Gin, 1998, Japanese Empire in the Tropics, 631