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EMPIRE DOON (1936)
Service dates: 1946-1958
Official number: 180806
Shipping lines: ORIENT STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY LTD.
Ship type:
Troopship.
Career
- 16.07.1936
- Launched.
- 12.12.1936
- Delivered as Pretoria for Deutsche Ost Afrikca Linie. Original specifications were 16,662 grt. Capacity 152 first and 338 tourist class passengers and 263 crew.
- 19.12.1936
- Maiden voyage on Hamburg/Cape service. She and her sister Windhuk were the last vessels built for DOAL before the War and were intended to take business from Union Castle Line.
- 1939
- Naval accommodation vessel and/or hospital ship at Hamburg.
- 1945
- Used to evacuate German East Africa.
- 10.1945
- Taken over by British Government and renamed Empire Doon. Bomb damage repaired on the Tyne.
- 01.1946
- Management handed over to Orient Steam Navigation Company.
- 23.01.1946
- Left Tyne for Southampton.
- 25.01.1946
- Left Southampton for Port Said with 183 female service personnel, returning via Naples with 1,300 Italian collaborators. Twice during the voyage the ship was disabled when stopping one auxiliary boiler immobilised the whole vessel.
- 16.03.1946
- Arrived at Falmouth to be laid up.
- 1947
- New boilers fitted by Thornycroft’s, Southampton.
- 1949
- Renamed Empire Orwell. Now 18,036 grt, 9,937 nrt.
- 17.01.1950
- Left Southampton for Port Said and return.
- 1950
- Passenger capacity now 171 first class, 84 second class, 103 third class, 30 boys, 96 sergeants, 1,008 other ranks
- 10.1957
- Returned to Ministry of Transport.
- 1958
- Chartered to Pan Islamic Steamship Co, Karachi for pilgrim traffic.
- 11.1958
- Sold to Blue Funnel Line. Refitted by Barclay Curle & Co, Glasgow for 106 first class and 2,000 third class passengers.
- 03.1959
- First pilgrim voyage Indonesia/Jeddah as Gunung Djati, named after a Japanese Islamic missionary.
- 1962
- Sold to Indonesian Government.
- 1965
- Sold to private owners.
- 1966
- Sold to PT Perusahaan Pelajaoran Arafat.
- 1973
- Fitted with 12,000 bhp MAN diesels.
- 1982
- Taken over by Indonesian Navy as a troopship and renamed Kri Tanjung Pandan.
- 1987
- Sold to be broken up in Taiwan.