HMHS Asturias

HMHS Asturias was a hospital ship drafted into the British Royal Navy. On 20 March 1917 on her route from Avonmouth to Southampton she was torpedoed by German U-boat UC-66. Beached by the crew near Bolt Head, Asturias was raised and towed to Plymouth where she sat for two years as a ammunition hulk.

History
Asturias worked for the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company operating the Southampton – Buenos Aires run. She was drafted into the Navy as a hospital ship and served in a number of places including Gallipoli, Egypt and Salonika, returning wounded to the UK. Although she was retrofitted for 896 patients on one occasion she shipped 2,400 sick and wounded back to the UK.

At 5:05 on 1 February 1915 a German U-boat launched a torpedo that successfully struck Asturias but failed to detonate. One month later the Germans released a press release that claimed the Asturias was misidentified and that once the mistake was realized by the U-boat crew they broke off the attack.

J. R. R. Tolkien was shipped back to the UK on the Asturias and remembers there being salt water baths on board. On 27 October 1916 as his battalion attacked Regina Trench, during the Battle of the Somme, Tolkien came down with trench fever, a disease carried by lice, which were common in the dugouts. Tolkien was invalided to England on 8 November 1916.

Sinking
Asturias had just finished unloading her cargo of 1000 wounded men from the front and was returning to port when on 20 March 1917 en-route from Avonmouth to Southampton she was torpedoed by German U-boat UC-66. She was able to beach herself near Bolt Head, but the damage was so extensive that she was declared a total loss. Thirty-one persons were killed with a further twelve missing. If she had gone down while still packed with wounded men the casualties would have been much higher as many of the men could not even move. The government then bought and salvaged her, and she became a floating ammunition hulk at Plymouth for two years.

SS Arcadian
In 1920 the damaged hulk was purchased by the Royal Mail Line and repaired as a Cruise Liner; renamed Arcadian she sailed in the Mediterranean and West Indies until 1930. In 1933 she was retired and scrapped.