SS Oronsay (1925)

For other ships called SS Oronsay, see Oronsay

SS Oronsay was a British ocean liner and World War II troopship. She was sunk by an Italian submarine in 1942.

Pre-war career
Oronsay was built for the Orient Steam Navigation Company on Clydebank and was launched by Viscountess Novar in 1924. Her maiden voyage started on 7 February 1925 from London to Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. She continued on this route (extended to New Zealand once in 1938) until the outbreak of World War II. The Australian military contingent for the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth took passage to the UK on the Oronsay in 1937.

Wartime Service
Taken-up from trade as a troopship, Oronsay took part in the Norwegian Campaign, including Operation Alphabet, the secret evacuation of Narvik on 7 June 1940. Almost immediately afterwards, she participated in Operation Ariel, the evacuation of British troops from western France. On 17 June 1940, she was anchored in the Loire Estuary, embarking troops being ferried out from St Nazaire in destroyers and small boats. During an air-raid, a German bomb landed on the ship's bridge, killing several people, destroying the chart, steering and wireless rooms and breaking the captain's leg. Taking on survivors from RMS Lancastria which had sunk nearby, Captain Norman Savage steered the ship home with the aid of a pocket compass, a sextant and a sketch map.

On 14 August 1940, she sailed from Liverpool bound for Halifax with 351 evacuated children under the Children's Overseas Reception Board scheme.

During the first week of October 1940, Oronsay, while part of a convoy from the Clyde to Egypt carrying troops, was bombed by German aircraft 70 miles off Bloody Foreland in Ireland. According to at least one eye witness, no bombs actually hit the ship, but the engines were damaged by the blast and the rest of the convoy, with escort, sailed on. With the ship in a highly vulnerable state during a storm (which may, fortuitously, have been limiting U-boat activity in the area), the engines were restarted. Oronsay then made her way back to port without further incident, though a number of casualties were reported.

On 9 October 1942, Oronsay was sailing in the Atlantic en route from Cape Town to the UK via Freetown. She was carrying 50 RAF personnel, 20 rescued British seamen, and 8 DEMS gunners, with a cargo of 1,200 tons of copper and 3,000 tons of oranges. When she was some 500 miles southwest of Freetown, she was torpedoed by the Italian submarine Archimede. As the boats were being lowered a second torpedo was launched, hitting one of the boats and killing five of those on it. In all 6 crew members were lost; the remainder got the ship's boats away as Oronsay sank. 321 of them were rescued by HMS Brilliant (H84) after 12 days. 26 survivors, including the ship's surgeon James McIlroy (the Antarctic explorer), were picked-up by the Vichy French sloop Dumont D'Urville, and were interned at Dakar.

Captain Savage was later made Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for courage and seamanship during and after the sinking.