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SHILLONG (1939)
Service dates: 1939-1943
Official number: 167175
Shipping lines: P&O STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY
Ship type:
General Cargo Liner.
Career
- 20.04.1937
- Ordered.
- 10.12.1937
- Keel laid.
- 11.08.1938
- Launched.
- 14.02.1939
- Ran trials and delivered as Shillong for The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. A sister ship was named Surat.
- 12.03.1939
- First sailing from London (Royal Albert Dock) to Calcutta.
- 25.03.1943
- Torpedoed by the German submarine U635 (57°10’N-35°30’W). She sank at 0015hrs the following day. She carried 8,000 tons of zinc concentrates and 3,000 tons of grain and general cargo. 71 of her crew were lost; the seven survivors of the 38 who got away in a boat and on a raft spent 8 days at sea in bitterly cold conditions before being sighted by a Catalina flying boat and picked up by a rescue ship.