SS Lorina (1918)

TSS Lorina was a passenger vessel built for the London and South Western Railway in 1918.[1]

History
Name: TSS Lorina
Operator:
Port of registry:
Builder: William Denny and Brothers, Dumbarton
Yard number: 1021
Launched: 12 August 1918
Out of service: 29 May 1940
Fate: Bombed and sunk
General characteristics
Tonnage: 1,457 gross register tons (GRT)
Length: 291.3 feet (88.8 m)
Beam: 36.1 feet (11.0 m)

History

She was built by William Denny and Brothers and launched on 12 August 1918 and later converted into a troopship by Caledon Shipyards in Dundee. After an initial role as a troop ship, she was deployed on service in March 1920 for the railway company to the Channel Islands.

In 1923, the TSS Lorina was acquired by the Southern Railway. On 27 August 1927 when leaving Guernsey she collided with a motor fishing boat in St Peter Port. The fishing boat sank within two minutes and one of the fishermen drowned.[2] On 23 October 1935 she struck the Platte Rock near St Helier harbour but there were no casualties.[3]

When the war started Lorina quickly pressed into service as a transport & was called from Southampton to Dover after Operation Dynamo began.

She was dive-bombed and sunk on 29 May 1940 off Dunkirk by Luftwaffe aircraft during the Dunkirk evacuation with the loss of eight crew.[4] Two days later the wreck was boarded by men from the destroyer HMS Winchelsea who lowered undamaged lifeboats from the Lorina's davits and used them to ferry troops from the beaches.

References
  1. Duckworth, Christian Leslie Dyce; Langmuir, Graham Easton (1968). Railway and other Steamers. Prescot, Lancashire: T. Stephenson and Sons.
  2. "Man drowned in collision with steamer". Yorkshire Evening Post. England. 24 August 1927. Retrieved 1 December 2015 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  3. "Jersey Steamer Holed". Nottingham Evening Post. England. 24 October 1935. Retrieved 1 December 2015 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  4. "SS Lorina (+1940)". Wrecksite. Retrieved 10 November 2011.
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