MS Sobieski

MS Sobieski was a Polish passenger ship built for the Polish Ocean Lines to replace the aging SS Kościuszko and SS Pulaski; a sister ship to the MS Chrobry. She was named in honour of the Polish king Jan III Sobieski.[2]

MS Gruziya, former MS Sobieski in Helsinki
History
Name:	Sobieski
Owner:	Polish Ocean Lines
Operator:	Gdynia America Line
Port of registry:	1950–1975: Odessa,  Soviet Union
Route:	South America service
Builder:	Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson, Wallsend.
Launched:	25 August 1938
Completed:	15 June 1939
Maiden voyage:	15 June 1939
Out of service:	1939 taken up as troopship
Identification:	Call sign: UPOV IMO number: 5136866
Fate:	1975 scrapped at La Spezia
Status:	Scrapped
Notes:	1947 returned to civilian service 1950 sold to Russia renamed Gruziya
General characteristics
Tonnage:	11,030 BRT
Length:	155.85 m (511 ft 4 in)
Beam:	20.41 m (67 ft 0 in)
Draft:	8.30 m (27 ft 3 in)
Installed power:	Engines by J. G. Kincaid & Co, Greenock
Propulsion:	Twin screw
Speed:	17 knots
Capacity:	44 first-class, 250 third-class and 850 emigrants
Notes:	[1]

The ship was used as a troopship in the Allied evacuation of western France in 1940 (Operation Ariel), the Battle of Dakar and the campaign in Madagascar. She was also used to transport the British 18th Division to the defence of Singapore.

At the end of the war she repatriated the remnants of that division's Cambridgeshire Regiment that had survived captivity at the hands of the Japanese in Malaya and Thailand. She also returned former Changi prisoners of war (POWs) from Singapore, sailing via Cape Town and docking at Southampton during a dockworkers' strike. Disgusted, dismayed ex-POWs had to unload their own baggage, such as it was.