SS Khedive Ismail

SS Khedive Ismail was a steamship sunk by a Japanese submarine in 1944 with great loss of life.

The 7,513 ton ship had been launched as Aconcagua by Scotts of Greenock in 1922. When the Aconcagua passed into Egyptian ownership in 1935 she was renamed after Isma'il Pasha, the Khedive of Egypt from 1863 until 1879. In 1940 Khedive Ismail was requisitioned as a British troopship by the Ministry of War Transport (MoWT).

On 6 February 1944 Convoy KR-8 sailed from Kilindini Harbour at Mombasa, Kenya to Colombo, Ceylon. The convoy consisted of five troop transports (Khedive Ismail, City of Paris, Varsova, Ekma, and Ellenga), and a Navy escort led by the heavy cruiser HMS Hawkins (D86).

In the early afternoon of Saturday 12 February 1944, the Japanese I-27, commanded by Lt-Cdr Toshiaki Fukumura, attacked the convoy in the One and a Half Degree Channel, south-west of the Maldives near coordinates 1.41667°N, 72.36667°W. The submarine hit Khedive Ismail with two of four torpedoes launched.

It took two minutes for the Khedive Ismail to sink. The ship was carrying 1,511 personnel including 178 crew, 996 officers and men of the East African Artillery's 301st Field Regiment, 271 Royal Navy personnel, and a detachment of 19 Wrens. Also on board were 53 nursing sisters accompanied by one matron, and 9 members of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. Only 208 men and 6 women survived; 1,297 people, including 77 women, lost their lives. The sinking was the third worst Allied shipping disaster of World War II and the single worst loss of female service personnel in the history of the Commonwealth of Nations. Among the dead was war correspondent Kenneth Gandar-Dower. As survivors struggled in the sea, I-27 submerged and hid beneath them. While HMS Paladin (G69) lowered boats to begin rescuing survivors, HMS Petard (G56) released depth charges. The destruction of a submarine that might sink more ships took precedence over the lives of the survivors. I-27 under Commander Fukumura had a history of machine-gunning survivors of ships she had sunk, including SS Sambridge and Fort Mumford.

On Petard's third run, her depth charges forced I-27 to the surface. Unable to sink her with shellfire, Paladin rammed the submarine, in the process causing considerable damage to herself. Finally a torpedo from Petard, the seventh she had fired, destroyed I-27.