Name Sobieski Operator Gdynia America Line Completed 15 June 1939 Length 156 m | Owner Polish Ocean Lines Route South America service Launched 25 August 1938 Builder Swan Hunter | |
 | ||
Port of registry 1950–1975 Odessa, Soviet Union | ||
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.
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.