Yard number 650 Launched 25 April 1910 | Completed June 1910 Length 111 m | |
Name British Transport (1910-1933) Fate Scrapped, Pola, Italy, July 1933. | ||
SS British Transport was a steel-hulled steamship of 4143 grt built in 1910 by Raylton Dixon at Middlesbrough [1]. On 11 September 1917 under the command of Capt. Alfred Thompson Pope (Lieut., R.N.R), British Transport was in the Bay of Biscay en route from Brest to Archangel with a cargo of munitions and other explosives when she was attacked by the surfaced U-boat SM U-49. After a five-hour gun battle lasting into darkness, U-49 fired two torpedoes at her but both missed. Betrayed by the phosphorescence in her wake, British Transport pursued and rammed the submarine, and then fired her deck gun to complete U-boat's destruction. U-49 sank at 46.17N 14.42W with the loss of all 43 hands.[2]. This was the first action in which a merchant ship had sunk a U-boat, for which Pope was awarded the DSO.[3]
British Transport was scrapped at Pola, Italy, in 1933.