SS Sophocles (1921)

Updated on Nov 24, 2023

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Name SS Sophocles Tamaroa Yard number 575 Launched 22 September 1921 Builder Harland and Wolff		Route UK to New Zealand Completed 2 February 1922 Length 152 m

Operator Aberdeen Line (1921-1932) Shaw, Savill & Albion Line (1926-1957) Fate Breakers yard, Faslane 1957

SS Sophocles was an 12,300-ton ocean liner of the Aberdeen Line launched in 1921, and later sold to the Shaw, Savill & Albion Line.

Ship history

Sophocles was built at the Harland and Wolff yard in Belfast. She and her sister ship SS Diogenes, like other Aberdeen Line ships were conceived primarily as cargo vessels. Sophocles had accommodation for 130 first class and 420 third class passengers.

In 1926, Sophocles and Diogenes were chartered by Shaw, Savill & Albion for the New Zealand trade. The third class accommodation was greatly improved and both ships benefitted from conversion from coal burning to oil, which brought an increase in speed to 15 knots, for the cost of £70,000 each. At this time Sophocles was renamed Tamaroa and Diogenes was renamed Mataroa.

During World War II both Tamaroa and her sister ship were pressed into service as troopships. Tamaroa served in the North African campaign. At the end of hostilities, both vessels were refitted for tourist class only and served on the UK-Panama canal-New Zealand route until their scrapping in 1957.

In 1945, Mataroa made two famous journeys:

In August 1945, the Mataroa was chartered to transport from Marseille to Haifa 173 Jewish children of the Œuvre de secours aux enfants (OSE), survivors of the Buchenwald concentration camp, who had family in Palestine. She later transported 1,200 survivors of Bergen-Belsen.

In late December 1945, the Mataroa brought from Greece to Taranto in southern Italy a number of Greek artists and intellectuals Greek aiming to reach Paris, in France, in the context of the Greek civil war. The vast majority were fellows of France. This trip was organized by the then Director of the French Institute of Athens, philhellene Octave Merlier, and his deputy Roger Milliex, husband of Tatiana Gritsi-Milliex. Some of the passengers became internationally recognised artists, scientists or intellectuals, including: architect George Candilis, artists Constantine Andreou & Costa Coulentianos, philosophers Kostas Axelos, Cornelius Castoriadis & Kostas Papaïoannou, linguist Emmanuel Kriaras, filmmaker Ado Kyrou, physician Miltiadès Papamiltiadès.

References

SS Sophocles (1921) Wikipedia

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