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MOOLTAN (1923)
Service dates: 1923-1954
Official number: 145435
Shipping lines: P&O STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY
Ship type:
Passenger Liner.
Career
- 21.09.1923
- Ran trials and delivered as Mooltan for The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company at a cost of £1,566,118.
- 05.10.1923
- Maiden voyage Tilbury/Bombay.
- 1929
- Fitted with British Thompson Houston exhaust-driven electric turbines and motors increasing her power to 16,000 ihp and her speed to 17 knots.
- 11.1929
- Accommodation overhauled and improved. Now 356 first class, 336 second class.
- 1931
- Accommodation again overhauled and improved.
- 1938
- Fitted to carry chilled beef.
- 06.09.1939
- Requisitioned for service as an Armed Merchant Cruiser.
- 19.09.1939
- Arrived in Belfast to be converted by Harland & Wolff followed by additional attention in London.
- 31.07.1940
- Attacked by a German reconnaissance aircraft in the Western Approaches, while en route Plymouth to Freetown.
- 26.01.1941
- Returned to P&O for conversion to a troopship by R & H Green & Silley Weir Ltd, Tilbury.
- 05.1941
- Conversion to a troopship completed on Tyneside. Carried Allied troops in the Middle East Campaign.
- 07.11.1942
- Took part in the North African landings at Arzew, east of Oran in company with Ettrick.
- 06.06.1945
- The first P&O passenger ship to enter the Port of London after VE-Day.
- 16.07.1947
- Returned to P&O and reconditioned for commercial use by her builders.
- 26.08.1948
- Re-entered commercial service. Now 21,039 grt, carrying 1,030 tourist class passengers.
- 04.1949
- Arrived at Tilbury the day after a passenger died of smallpox. Quarantined for three days before disembarkation, but five other passengers died later.
- 1951
- Cargo capacity now 15,349 cubic metres (542,160 cubic feet) including 4,355 cubic metres (153,810 cubic feet) insulated.
- 18.11.1953
- Last homeward departure from Brisbane.
- 07.01.1954
- Last arrival at Tilbury.
- 23.01.1954
- Sold for £150,000 to British Iron and Steel Corporation (Salvage) Ltd, and allocated to Metal Industries Ltd for demolition at Faslane.