RAZMAK (1925)

Service dates: 1925-1960

Official number: 147816

Shipping lines: P&O STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY; UNION STEAM SHIP COMPANY OF NEW ZEALAND

Ship type:

• Passenger Ship

Passenger Liner.

Career

20.06.1923

Keel laid.

16.10.1924

Launched by Viscountess Inchcape, wife of the P&O Chairman.

26.02.1925

Ran trials in Belfast Lough and delivered as Razmak for The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. She was built to replace Salsette on the Aden/Bombay shuttle service. Razmak was a garrison town on the North West Frontier.

13.03.1925

Maiden voyage London/Marseilles/Suez/Bombay

25.11.1925

Supplied fresh water for the boilers of the French gunboat Alerte in the Indian Ocean.

18.07.1930

Returned to UK to be laid up. By the late 1920s newer and faster ships on the Australian route were able to call at Bombay without disrupting their mail contract schedules and Razmak was no longer needed to trans-ship passengers from Aden to Bombay.

11.1930

Ownership, management and operation transferred to the Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand Ltd, Wellington (a P&O subsidiary), which was in need of a passenger ship for their New Zealand/San Francisco service following the loss of Tahiti in August. She was renamed Monowai, and her registry was changed to Wellington, New Zealand, call sign now ZMCD. Fitted out to carry 483 third class passengers. The number of crew reduced to 180.

02.12.1930

Maiden sailing Wellington/San Francisco.

07.1932

Broke the Wellington/Sydney record with 2 days, 18 hours 43 minutes.

03.1933

Took the Wellington/Sydney record with 2 days, 15 hours.

09.1933

One voyage on Sydney/Vancouver service.

1934

Moved to trans-Tasman service Wellington/Auckland/Sydney/ Melbourne due to competition form the new Matson liners running Sydney/San Francisco.

1935

Melbourne calls cancelled as an economy measure.

01.1936

Called at Lord Howe Island to pick up a sick woman who recovered in Auckland Hospital. Then laid up until 1939.

21.10.1939

Requisitioned by the New Zealand Government and sent to Devonport, Auckland to be converted into an armed merchant cruiser. Eight 6-inch and later 3-inch guns were fitted.

30.08.1940

Commissioned RNZS. Acted as a convoy escort in the South Pacific, but by December 1942 had been replaced in the escort role by US Navy vessels.

30.12.1941

Following her conversion she was sent out for target practice in Hauraki Gulf. The No.1 gun, port side, exploded when the breech black was accidentally opened just as the gun was being fired. Four killed.

16.01.1942

Torpedoes fired at her by a Japanese submarine outside Suva harbour actually exploded against a breakwater.

09.1943

Arrived at Liverpool for conversion to a Landing Ship (Infantry).

01.1944

Commissioned. Trooped to Port Said and Italy, and subsequently served at the Normandy landings, making 45 round trips to the beaches and carrying 73,000 troops.

22.04.1945

Sailed Plymouth/Odessa with repatriated Soviet ex-prisoners-of-war. Later two more voyages Marseilles/Odessa.

13.09.1945

Arrived Singapore to evacuate 650 service personnel and 199 civilians released from Japanese POW camps.

08.10.1945

Arrived Liverpool.

08.1946

Released from war service at Sydney after assorted trooping voyages.

31.08.1946

Returned to her owners and commenced reconditioning at Mort’s Dock & Engineering Co Ltd., Sydney. Fitted out to carry 181 first class and 205 tourist class passengers.

19.01.1949

Sailed on her first post-war commercial voyage New Zealand/ Sydney.

04.07.1951

Held up at Wellington by dockworker’s strike.

05.1959

Suffered a serious fire in her boiler room.

19.05.1960

Final trans-Tasman sailing from Auckland.

02.06.1960

Final voyage a Pacific cruise.

06.1960

Sold for £165,000 to Far East Shipping Trading Co Ltd for demolition.

13.09.1960

Delivered at Hong Kong.

Ship technical details (PDF)