Name Maasdam Weight 8,953 tons | Acquired 1921 Displacement 7.994 million kg | |
Fate Torpedoed June 26, 1941 | ||
SS Maasdam was a Convoy HX 133 cargo liner that was torpedoed and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean off Greenland (60°00′N 30°35′W) by the German submarine U-564 on June 27, 1941, with the loss of two of the 80 people on board. Survivors were rescued by Havprins and another Norwegian ship.
One of the people lost at sea was Ruth Bradley Woodman Breckinridge, ex-wife of Colonel Henry S. Breckinridge (Secretary of War under Harry S. Truman), mother of Elizabeth Breckinridge and mother-in-law of John Stephens Graham. Ruth Breckinridge traveled via the SS Maasdam for England where she was to work in London at a hospital as a house mother to Red Cross nurses.
Prior to being sunk in 1941, it was in several convoys starting in May 26, 1940 with Convoy FN.181 between Southend and Methil. It was part of other convoys between Halifax and Liverpool, Tyne and Southend and from Liverpool. SS Maasdam collided with the British cargo ship Anthea off the coast of Canada (44°48′N 46°37′W) and SS Anthea sank.