Help Indentifying Ship

[PJS]

I appreciate that this is a long shot but can anyone help me identify this ship?

 

 

Context is that it was taken by my Grandfather at the Bar of the Shatt al-Arab - most likely sometime in 1916 or 1917. From my research I know that the following ships were present and struggled to cross the Bar in 1916:

HS ASSAYE
HS DEVANHA
HS ERINPURA
HS GASCON
HS GLENART CASTLE
HS LOYALTY
HS MADRAS
HT NILE
HS SICILIA
HS SYRIA
HS TAKADA

 

Any help appreciated.

 

Peter

[seaJane]

If she was specifically trans-shipping troops (not wounded) to or from the fighting it can't be any of the hospital ships and would therefore, by a process of elimination, have to be HT NILE if the above list is correct.

 

I can't see any red cross where I would expect one, either.

[PJS]

Thank You seaJane. The above list of possible ships is by no means complete. As you say, there is no visible Hospital Ship marking but the right-hand flag on the stern looks to me like it is possibly a red cross and so the ship is perhaps a Hospital Transport?  The following ships are some of those being used as transports in Mesopotamia around that time.

 

ARONDA
Edavana

EGRA

Ekma
Elephanta

Erinpura

KALZAN KALYAN
Lightning
Malta

Nile
Nutah
Palitana

PENTACOSTE PENTAKOTA
SOFALA

Torilla
Umaria
Varela
Varsova
 

 

Edited 1 December , 2018 by PJS
Corrected Ship names

[MerchantOldSalt]

Peter

Seajane is quite correct with her process of elimination, a further pointer is that only the NILE of all the ships on your list had two funnels.  However I do not think the ship in your picture is the NILE, she is much bigger, possibly one of P&O's liners but as yet I cannot work out which ship she is.

 

A red cross flag would not have been flown from the ensign staff at the stern of he ship, only from the after mast head

 

I think some of the names on your list are incorrect, I would suggest that Kalzan is BI's KALYAN, the Nutah is the UTAH, and Pentacoste probably PENTAKOTA.

 

The attached photo is of the Nile but she would have not had her mainmast, the middle one, in 1916/1917 it was removed by then.

 

Will keep looking for the ship in the photo!

 

Tony

 

[PJS]

3 hours ago, MerchantOldSalt said:

Peter

Seajane is quite correct with her process of elimination, a further pointer is that only the NILE of all the ships on your list had two funnels.  However I do not think the ship in your picture is the NILE, she is much bigger, possibly one of P&O's liners but as yet I cannot work out which ship she is.

 

A red cross flag would not have been flown from the ensign staff at the stern of he ship, only from the after mast head

 

I think some of the names on your list are incorrect, I would suggest that Kalzan is BI's KALYAN, the Nutah is the UTAH, and Pentacoste probably PENTAKOTA.

 

The attached photo is of the Nile but she would have not had her mainmast, the middle one, in 1916/1917 it was removed by then.

 

Will keep looking for the ship in the photo!

 

Tony

 

 

Thanks Tony.  Yes, I do agree that "KALZAN" is really KALYAN (I had mistyped it once in my original document and of course that was the one I grabbed).  I actually wonder if the "Pentacoste" is the HT Pentacotta? I have two references for the Pentacotta one of which is here. The other is in the war diary of the ADMS Basra. (Again, I think I had just completely mistyped it as Pentacoste in my original document which I then copied into the original post).

 

Thank's again for looking!

 

Peter

 

[Wexflyer]

How about one of the RIM troopships, several of which are known to have visited/been stationed at Basra. Several had twin funnels,

e.g. RIMS Dufferin, Hardinge, and Northbrook?

[Knotty]

Could it be this one “”Royal Edward” ex-Cairo, she was a troopship, but I believe she was sunk in 1915, she also had a sister ship the ”Royal George”, (cannot find a photo of the R G), could it be her in the photo?

[RaySearching]

2 hours ago, Knotty said:

she also had a sister ship the ”Royal George”, (cannot find a photo of the R G), could it be her in the photo?

 

 

Royal George

[PJS]

6 hours ago, Knotty said:

Could it be this one “”Royal Edward” ex-Cairo, she was a troopship, but I believe she was sunk in 1915, she also had a sister ship the ”Royal George”, (cannot find a photo of the R G), could it be her in the photo?

 

To my untrained eyes there is certainly a very strong similarity to the picture of the Royal Edward and the mystery ship.

 

However, my grandfather's photo was definitely taken after the Royal Edward was sunk so it would need to be the Royal George. I have not yet been able to find out where the Royal George was in 1916/1917 but it was used as a hospital transport in the Dardanelles campaign.

 

 

Peter

[Knotty]

4 hours ago, RaySearching said:

Royal George

 

Thank you Ray, have just got back home, so no need for me to resume searching.

PJS, I thought she was in the Dardanelles around the same time my Grandfather was, that’s him in my avatar, will look up some of his photos to see if there is a picture.

 

[MKC]

Royal Edward was sunk by submarine on 13 August 1915.

 

HMT E2168 Royal George was used as a British Forces troopship from 12 Feb 1915 to 10 January 1919. Voyages included transport of invalids from Salonika to UK. So in and around the Med, at least, by the looks of it. 

 

In Feb 1919, it was taken up by the Canadians to return troops to Canada. 

 

Not exactly what you were after, Peter, but every little bit of information helps.

 

Mike

[Knotty]

Looks like the Royal George was formally the SS Heliopolis, picture of her c1910 and link https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Heliopolis_(1907)

 

[MerchantOldSalt]

I think this photo from the same aspect pretty well proves the case, the Royal George it is, full marks Knotty I was still ploughing through P&O knowing I was in the wrong place!

 Tony

 

 

 

[PJS]

Incredible. Thanks to everyone that posted here - especially Knotty & Tony. Amazing work!

 

By the way, I found these old posts about Royal George on the forum which indicate that she was at or around Basra in 1916/1917 - at least twice.

 

https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/262812-rfa-officer-help-reading-signature-please/?tab=comments#comment-2666405

"He sailed from Marseilles on 4 Dec 1915 on the “Royal George”, disembarking in Basrah on 1 Jan 1916."

 

https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/81848-hmt-commonwealth-july-1917-devonport/?tab=comments#comment-758202

17/9/17 Admitted to hospital 'Royal George'
21/9/17 Admitted to hospital Basra.

 

I am now going to see if I can find any more details about her movements during 1916/1917 ...

 

Peter

[MBrockway]

On 20/08/2018 at 17:33, PJS said:

Thank You seaJane. The above list of possible ships is by no means complete. As you say, there is no visible Hospital Ship marking but the right-hand flag on the stern looks to me like it is possibly a red cross and so the ship is perhaps a Hospital Transport?  The following ships are some of those being used as transports in Mesopotamia around that time.

 

ARONDA
Edavana

EGRA

Ekma
Elephanta

Erinpura

KALZAN KALYAN
Lightning
Malta

Nile
Nutah
Palitana

PENTACOSTE PENTACOTTA
SOFALA

Torilla
Umaria
Varela
Varsova
 

 

 

On 20/08/2018 at 20:11, MerchantOldSalt said:

Peter

I think some of the names on your list are incorrect, I would suggest that Kalzan is BI's KALYAN, the Nutah is the UTAH, and Pentacoste probably PENTAKOTA.

 

Tony

 

 

 

 

For what it's worth, I have found this spelling as HS Pantakota in a service record here ....

 

However I agree with Tony that the correct name of the ship was Pentakota.  She appears to have been a Clyde-built steamer launched in 1890, originally owned by the British India Steam Navigation Company.  She appears several times in Royal Naval log books encountered in the Persian Gulf, Red Sea and Indian Ocean operating as a transport, troopship and hospital ship.

 

In 1918 she was in service as a mail ship in the Red Sea.

 

She ran aground in 1920, was refloated, broken up and scrapped in 1921.

 

See here: http://www.clydeships.co.uk/view.php?year_built=&builder=&ref=10260&vessel=PENTAKOTA

 

2 B.B.D. in the image above is No 2 British Base Depot at MAKINA, the major camp and depot area in the northern outskirts of Basra (aka BUSRA)

 

I assume the HS Pentakota embarked its passengers from a quay on the Shat al'Arab near Makina rather than them all being transhipped at the Bar.

 

Mark

 

 

 

 

Edited 1 December , 2018 by MBrockway

[PJS]

1 hour ago, MBrockway said:

For what it's worth, I have found this spelling as HS Pantakota in a service record here ....

 

Mark,

 

I have the War Diary for the Embarkation Commandant for BASRA in 1916 and that shows the arrival of the PENTAKOTA on August 20, 1916 and its departure at 11:00am on August 27, 1916.

 

 

So, as you say, clearly it is PENTAKOTA and not "PANTAKOTA". 

 

I then went back to the original source and it really does say "PENTACOTTA" in the ADMS War Diary (Jan 10, 1916 and April 3, 1916) and also in the ships log for HMS DALHOUSIE - but the HMS DALHOUSIE Log date is August 26, 1916 so we already know it to be the PENTAKOTA so we can discount the HMS DALHOUSIE log reference. 

 

Then I went off and also found references to PENTAKOTA at various times in the ships logs of HMS DALHOUSIE, HMS ALERT, HMS CLIO & HMS JUNO. And I found no other references to PENTACOTTA.

 

Conclusion is that the ADMS War Diary is wrong and it really is the PENTAKOTA. I have corrected the ADMS War Diary transcription and the posting above.

 

Thanks for the help in clarifying and correcting this.

 

Peter  
 

[MBrockway]

Nice work Peter.  Misspellings of these ship names do seem to be quite common.

 

You may also have seen PALAMCOTTA and variants in the Admiralty Logs.  This appears to be a genuinely different ship, probably a sister ship given the closely similar details.

 

See: http://www.clydeships.co.uk/view.php?ref=10256&vessel=PALAMCOTTA

 

 

[Lionel Burgess]

I also believe this to be HMT Royal George used as a troopship throughout WW1. The 2nd Battalion Royal West Kent Regt embarked on her on 16 Mar 1917 from Devonport with the Mesopotamia Expeditionary Force. This info is from the Army Service Records of Pte. G/1852 Roland Alfred Woodgate born in Oxted, Surrey, in 1893, the son of Alfred & Rose Woodgate. His service records are available on the "Ancestry" site but like many WW1 service records, they are badly burned and water damaged. Hope this helps in some way.