HMHS Asturias

Asturias was a member of RMSP's "A" series of passenger liners on the Southampton – Buenos Aires route. Harland & Wolff built her on slip number 6 of its South Yard in Belfast, Ireland. She was launched on 26 September 1907 and completed on 8 January 1908.{{cite web |url= http://www.theyard.info/ships/ships.asp?entryid=388 |title=Asturias |work=Harland and Wolff |access-date=16 January 2021}}

Asturias was {{convert|520.3|ft|abbr=on}} long between perpendiculars, had a beam of {{convert|62.3|ft|abbr=on}} and depth of {{convert|31.8|ft|abbr=on}}. Her tonnages were {{GRT|12015}}, {{NRT|6892}} and 8,156 tons under deck. She had two screws, each driven by a four-cylinder quadruple expansion steam engine. Between them the two engines developed a total of 924 NHP.{{cite book |url= https://plimsoll.southampton.gov.uk/shipdata/pdfs/31/31b0080.pdf |year=1931 |title=Lloyd's Register, Steamers & Motorships |place=London |publisher=Lloyd's Register |accessdate=29 May 2017}}

By 1913 Asturias was equipped for wireless telegraphy, operating on the 300 and 600 metre wavelengths. Her call sign was MBB.{{sfn|The Marconi Press Agency Ltd|1913|page=246}}

There was an Anglo-German arms race before the First World War, and in 1913 the Admiralty armed most of RMSP's "A" series liners as defensively equipped merchant ships ("DAMS") . Asturias was armed with two QF {{convert|4.7|in|adj=on}} guns.{{sfn|Seligmann|2012|p=132}}

However, just before the First World War the Admiralty decided to use Asturias as a hospital ship instead. Her First Class smokeroom was converted into an operating theatre. Her dining room was converted into a ward for 85 patients. Cabin partitions were removed to create other wards. Her children's dining room was converted into bathrooms and toilets. Radiology and disinfecting facilities were installed.{{sfn|Nicol|2001b|p=118}} Her total capacity was for 896 patients.{{citation needed|date=May 2017}} Asturias was painted in the hospital ship livery of a white hull with a broad green band punctuated by large red crosses.{{sfn|Nicol|2001b|p=119}}

On 5 August 1914, one day after the UK entered the war, Asturias left Southampton for the Royal Navy anchorage at Scapa Flow.{{sfn|Nicol|2001b|p=118}} She was soon sent to Le Havre in northern France, where she embarked wounded troops from the British Expeditionary Force.{{sfn|Nicol|2001b|p=119}}

Asturias{{'}} duties took her mostly to French and Mediterranean ports, from Saint-Nazaire on the Bay of Biscay to the Gallipoli Campaign in Turkey.{{sfn|Nicol|2001b|p=119}} She also visited Salonika and Egypt. On one occasion she carried 2,400 sick and wounded back to the UK: more than twice the number she had was equipped to carry.{{harvnb|Roll of Honour|2009|p=}}

At 5:05{{clarify|date=May 2017|reason=12- or 24-hour clock?}} on 1 February 1915 a German U-boat fired a torpedo that struck Asturias but failed to detonate. A month later Germany released a press statement claiming that Asturias was misidentified and that once the U-boat crew realized their mistake it broke off the attack.<{{sfn|The New York Times|1915|p=}}

In the spring of 1916 HM King George V visited Asturias.{{sfn|Nicol|2001b|p=119}} Later that year J. R. R. Tolkien returned to the UK aboard her. On 27 October 1916, as his battalion attacked Regina Trench in the Battle of the Somme, he had caught trench fever. Tolkien was invalided to England on 8 November 1916, and remembered there being salt water baths on board.{{sfn|Garth|2013|p=205}}

File:HMHS Asturias.jpg

On 20 March 1917 Asturias disembarked 1,000 wounded men at Avonmouth. She then sailed for Southampton, but that night off Start Point, Devon the German U-boat {{SMU|UC-66||2}} torpedoed her.{{sfn|The Argus|1917|p=7}} Her machine spaces quickly flooded and her Master ordered her crew and medical staff of 50 nurses to abandon ship. Because her engine room was flooded the controls to shut down her engines could not be reached.{{Cite news|url=https://www.thehindu.com/archive/fate-of-asturias/article17745564.ece|title=Fate of "Asturias"|date=2017-03-31|work=The Hindu|access-date=2019-08-19|language=en-IN|issn=0971-751X}} Therefore, she was still slowly under way when her crew launched her lifeboats, and some occupants of one boat were drowned.{{sfn|Nicol|2001b|p=119}}

Asturias was down by her stern and listing to port, but as she was still under way she made for shore. Her Master managed to beach her near Bolt Head. There she lowered her remaining boats, in which her survivors made landfall at Salcombe.{{sfn|Nicol|2001b|p=119}} One source counted 31 persons killed, and another 12 missing.{{sfn|The New York Times|1917|p=}} Another counts the total number of dead as 35.{{cite web |url= http://uboat.net/wwi/ships_hit/515.html |title=Asturias |last=Helgason |first=Guðmundur |date=1995–2017 |work=uboat.net |publisher=Guðmundur Helgason |accessdate=29 May 2017}}

A month later Asturias was refloated and taken to Plymouth. There she was dry docked, and the damage was found to be so extensive that she was not repaired until after the end of the war.{{sfn|Nicol|2001b|p=120}} She was declared a total loss,{{sfn|Nicol|2001b|p=122}} the Admiralty bought her and used her as an ammunition hulk at Plymouth for the remainder of the war.{{citation needed|date=May 2017}}

File:Arcadian et Araguaya.jpg Araguaya in the 1920s on a cruise in a Norwegian fjord]]

In 1920 RMSP bought the damaged hulk and had her towed to Belfast. Shipyards were busy building new tonnage to replace vessels lost in the war, so Asturias{{'}} repairs and refit did not begin until 1922. RMSP had her converted into a cruise ship, which included turning some of her cargo holds into passenger accommodation, making her cabins more spacious and adding more public rooms. At the same time she was converted from coal to oil fuel. The work took a year, at the end of which RMPS renamed her Arcadian.{{sfn|Nicol|2001b|p=123}}

Arcadian cruised the Mediterranean and West Indies from 1923 until October 1930, when she was laid up. In 1933 Amakasu Gomei Kasha of Japan bought her for £13,700 for scrap.{{sfn|Nicol|2001a|p=235}}

• List of hospital ships sunk in World War I

{{reflist}}

• {{cite book |last=Garth |first=John |author-link=John Garth (author) |title=Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth |year=2013 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |isbn=9780544263727}}
• {{cite book |author=The Marconi Press Agency Ltd |author-link=Marconi Company |year=1913 |title=The Year Book of Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony |place=London |publisher=The St Katherine Press}}
• {{cite book |last=Nicol |first=Stuart |year=2001a |title=MacQueen's Legacy; A History of the Royal Mail Line |volume=1 |place=Brimscombe Port and Charleston, SC |publisher=Tempus Publishing |isbn=0-7524-2118-2}}
• {{cite book |last=Nicol |first=Stuart |year=2001b |title=MacQueen's Legacy; Ships of the Royal Mail Line |volume=2 |place=Brimscombe Port and Charleston, SC |publisher=Tempus Publishing |isbn=0-7524-2119-0 |pages=130–149}}
• {{cite book |last=Seligmann |first=Matthew S |year=2012 |title=The Royal Navy and the German Threat 1901 – 1914: Admiralty Plans to Protect British Trade in a War Against Germany |place=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-957403-2 |page=132}}

{{commons category|Asturias (ship, 1908)}}

• {{cite web |work=Roll of Honour |date=27 February 2009 |url = http://www.roll-of-honour.com/Ships/HMHSAsturias.html |title=HMHS Asturias |publisher=Martin Edwards |accessdate=7 March 2015 |ref={{sfnref|Roll of Honour|2009}}}}
• {{cite news |title= Hospital Ship Outrage |url= http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1607396 |newspaper=The Argus |place=Melbourne, VA |date=30 March 1917 |accessdate=7 March 2015 |ref={{sfnref|The Argus|1917}}}}
• {{cite news |title= Admits Asturias Attack |url= https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1915/03/07/104231155.pdf |newspaper=The New York Times |place=New York |issn= 0362-4331 |oclc=1645522 |date=7 March 1915 |accessdate=7 March 2015 |ref={{sfnref|The New York Times|1915}}}}
• {{cite news |title=31 on hospital ship killed by U-boat |url= https://www.nytimes.com/1917/03/28/archives/31-on-hospital-ship-killed-by-uboat-the-asturias-had-discharged.html |newspaper=The New York Times |place=New York |issn= 0362-4331 |oclc=1645522 |date=28 March 1917 |accessdate=7 March 2015 |ref={{sfnref|The New York Times|1917}}}}

{{March 1917 shipwrecks}}

{{coord missing|Atlantic Ocean}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Asturias}}

Category:1908 ships

Category:Attacks on hospitals during World War I

Category:Hospital ships in World War I

Category:Maritime incidents in 1917

Category:Ocean liners of the United Kingdom

Category:Ships built in Belfast

Category:Ships of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company

Category:Ships sunk by German submarines in World War I

Category:Steamships of the United Kingdom

Category:World War I auxiliary ships of the United Kingdom