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BULAN (1924)
Service dates: 1924-1952
Official number: 147900
Shipping lines: P&O STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY
Ship type:
General Cargo Ship.
Career
- 15.05.1924
- Launched.
- 10.06.1924
- Ran trials.
- 08.08.1924
- Delivered as Bulan for The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company at a cost of £51,645. She was built for P&O’s Malayan feeder services on which she operated with the ex-British India Steam Navigation Company coaster Mata Hari. Both ships were manned by BI and ran every week between Singapore and Penang calling at Malacca Straits ports and carrying raw rubber and local cargo. Bulan is Malay for ‘moon’ to go with her consort Mata Hari (‘eye of day’ ie ‘sun’).
- 09.1939
- Taken up for patrol duties as part of the Malayan Auxiliary Fleet. For a time employed moving oil refinery equipment from Sarawak to Singapore as part of a ‘scorched earth’ policy.
- 12.1941
- At Singapore when the Japanese first attacked the port. As the Japanese advanced her native crew were replaced by seamen and Royal Marines from HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse.
- 04.02.1942
- Rescued the crew of the ss Pinna sunk by divebombers. On another occasion she picked up the pilot of a Hurricane brought down in the sea.
- 11.02.1942
- Left Singapore with refugees bound for Batavia, and though she was bombed in the Banka Strait and stopped to take on board the crew of a Dutch tanker that had been sunk, she reached Batavia without damage on 15th February.
- 15.02.1942
- Left Batavia for Colombo in company with three smaller ships and carrying 300 Royal Navy ratings and an unserviceable Walrus amphibian, and arrived safely in Colombo.
- 01.06.1952
- Sold for £43,500 to Wo Fat Sing Ltd, Hong Kong, and renamed Sunon.
- 1958
- Sold to Tang Seck Fong, Hong Kong.
- 1960
- Sold to Kum Luei Ltd SA, Panama.
- 15.07.1961
- Stranded on Britto Bank in position 10°30’N-107°42’E during a voyage from Phnom Penh to Hong Kong with general cargo. Abandoned by her crew and later so damaged by local fishermen that salvage was uneconomic and the wreck was abandoned.