RMS Lady Hawkins

Cammell Laird of Birkenhead, on the Wirral in England built all five Lady-liners, and completed Lady Hawkins in November 1928.{{cite web |url= http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/ships/1270.html |last=Helgason |first=Guðmundur |title=Lady Hawkins |work=Ships hit by U-boats |date=1995–2014 |publisher=uboat.net |access-date=4 January 2014}}

Lady Hawkins was an oil-burner, with a set of four Cammell Laird steam turbines driving the propeller shafts to her twin screws by single-reduction gearing. She had three passenger decks, and by 1931 she was equipped with a direction finding device.{{cite book |url= https://plimsoll.southampton.gov.uk/shipdata/pdfs/31/31b0693.pdf |year=1931 |title=Lloyd's Register, Steamers & Motorships |location=London |publisher=Lloyd's Register |access-date=4 January 2014}}

CN introduced the liners which became known as "Lady Boats" for mail, freight and passenger traffic between Canada, Bermuda and the Caribbean. The company wanted to develop Canadian exports including lumber, and imports to Canada including fruit, sugar and molasses. Each Lady-liner had refrigerated holds for perishable cargo such as fruit, and capacity for 100,000 bunches of bananas.{{cite news |url= https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1946&dat=19290314&id=OZgtAAAAIBAJ&sjid=B4wFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6033,2475241 |title=West Indies Favor Canada's Products |newspaper=The Gazette |page=11 |date=14 March 1929 |access-date=4 January 2014}} Their hulls were painted white,{{cite web |url= http://imagescn.technomuses.ca/marine/index_view.cfm?photoid=19827090&id=114 |title=Passenger ship RMS Lady Hawkins |work=Marine Service |publisher=Canada Science and Technology Museum |access-date=4 January 2014}} which then was a relatively new fashion among shipping companies, and confined largely to passenger ships serving tropical or sub-tropical destinations.

{{RMS|Lady Drake||2}}, Lady Hawkins and {{RMS|Lady Nelson||2}} sailed fortnightly between Halifax and British Guiana via Boston, Bermuda, the Leeward Islands, the Windward Islands and Barbados. In summer the route was extended to the Montreal. CN named each of its five new liners after the wife of an English or British admiral who was noted for his actions in the Caribbean,{{cite news |url= http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=EP19380326.2.187.11&srpos=2&e=-------10--1----0%22Lady+Hawkins%22-- |title="Lady" Liners Sail to West Indies |newspaper=The Evening Post |location=Wellington |publisher=National Library of New Zealand |volume=CXXV |issue=72 |date=26 March 1938 |page=27 |access-date=4 January 2014}} and who had been knighted or ennobled. Lady Hawkins was named after Katherine, the wife of the Elizabethan Admiral Sir John Hawkins (1532–95).

In January 1942 Lady Hawkins sailed from Montreal for Bermuda and the Caribbean. She called at Halifax and Boston, and by the time she left Boston she was carrying 2,908 tons of general cargo and 213 passengers as well as her complement of 107 officers, crew and DEMS gunners. At least 53 of her passengers were Royal Navy and RNVR personnel, and at least another 55 were civilians, including at least 15 from the British West Indies{{cite web |url= http://caribbeanrollofhonour-ww1-ww2.yolasite.com/cwdww2.php |last=Lee |first=Jerome |title=Caribbean Civilian War Dead WW2 |work=Caribbean Roll of Honour |date=July 2009 |access-date=4 January 2014}} and four from the USA.{{cite web |url= http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/crews/ship1270.html |last=Helgason |first=Guðmundur |title=Lady Hawkins |series=Crew lists from ships hit by U-boats |date=1995–2014 |work=uboat.net |publisher=Guðmundur Helgason |access-date=4 January 2014}}

{{location map

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On the morning of 19 January 1942 the ship was sailing unescorted about {{convert|150|nmi|km}} off Cape Hatteras, taking a zigzag course to make her more difficult to hit, when at 0743 hrs {{GS|U-66|1940|2}} commanded by Korvettenkapitän Robert-Richard Zapp hit her with two stern-launched torpedoes. The liner sank in about 30 minutes.

Three of her six lifeboats were damaged, but the other three were launched.{{harvnb|Hocking|1989|p=}}{{page needed|date=January 2014}} One was commanded by her Chief Officer. It had capacity for 63 people but managed to embark 76 survivors. Its occupants could hear more people in the water, but could neither see them in the dark nor take them aboard the overcrowded boat if they had found them.{{cite news |url=http://www.canada.com/story_print.html?id=24e8819d-1284-41ae-aeb6-4c9b3424cfba |title=Saved From the Sea |newspaper=The Gazette |date=24 February 2007 |access-date=4 January 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140417083638/http://www.canada.com/story_print.html?id=24e8819d-1284-41ae-aeb6-4c9b3424cfba |archive-date=17 April 2014 }}

The boat had no radio transmitter and very limited rations of drinking water, ship's biscuit and condensed milk. It shipped water and needed constant baling, but it had a mast, sail and oars and Chief Officer Percy Kelly set a course west toward the USA's Atlantic coast sea lanes and land. The boat was at sea for five days, in which time five of its occupants died. Then the survivors sighted the Agwilines vessel {{SS|Coamo|1925|2}} and signalled her with a flashlight. Atlantic, Gulf & West Indies Lines (Agwilines) delivered Coamo to the U.S. War Shipping Administration on 11 February 1942 ([https://vesselhistory.marad.dot.gov/ShipHistory/Detail/7401 Maratime Administration record]) almost immediately after the rescue described. The ship was then allocated to Army use but was never Army owned or bareboat chartered. Agwilines operated the ship under General Agency Agreement as WSA's agent until presumed lost in December 1942 after being ordered to sail independently from a Gibraltar-U.K. convoy by the British Admiralty and never reaching the destination. (Charles, Roland W. (1947). Troopships of World War II; p. 176) [https://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/ship/2486.html The Coamo was sunk 2 December 1942 by U-604] Coamo{{'}}s Master misread the flashes as an enemy submarine preparing to attack, and was going to continue without stopping. It was only when the survivors shone the light on the boat's sail that he correctly understood their signal. Coamo rescued the boat's 71 surviving occupants, landing them at San Juan, Puerto Rico on 28 January.{{cite news |url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19420130.2.40|title=U-Boat War off U.S.A. – More Vessels Lost |newspaper=The Evening Post |location=Wellington |publisher=National Library of New Zealand |volume=CXXXIII |issue=25 |date=30 January 1942 |page=5 |access-date=4 January 2014}}

Of the three lifeboats launched, only Chief Officer Kelly's was found. Including the five who died in that boat, a total of 251 people from Lady Hawkins were lost. They were the ship's master Captain Huntley Giffen, 85 other members of the crew, one DEMS gunner and 164 of her passengers, including a naval chaplain, the Revd Amyas Shaw (Temporary Chaplain RNVR)The Sea Chaplains, Gordon Taylor, 1978, Oxford Illustrated Press, p. 559 and two Distressed British Seamen (i.e. survivors from previous sinkings). The 71 survivors whom Coamo rescued were Percy Kelly, 21 crew and 49 passengers.

Soon after Lady Hawkins{{'}} sinking, Kelly was promoted to captain and made master of one of her sister ships, Lady Drake. On 5 May 1942 {{GS|U-106|1940|2}} sank Lady Drake about {{convert|90|nmi|km}} north of Bermuda, killing six passengers and six crew. Kelly, 141 passengers and 113 of his crew survived and were rescued by the US Navy minesweeper {{USS|Owl|AM-2|6}}, which landed them on Bermuda.{{cite web |url=http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/ships/1606.html |last=Helgason |first=Guðmundur |title=Lady Drake |series=Ships hit by U-boats |date=1995–2014 |work=uboat.net |publisher=Guðmundur Helgason |access-date=4 January 2014}}

On 27 October 1942 two of Lady Hawkins{{'}} Able Seamen, Ernest Rice and Clarence Squires, were commended in Naval citations.{{cite web |url= http://ngb.chebucto.org/NFREG/WWII/ww2-awards-citations.shtml |last=Breen |first=Daniel |title=Naval Citations |work=Newfoundland's Grand Banks |publisher=Chebucto |access-date=4 January 2014}} On 22 December 1942 Captain Kelly was awarded the MBE for his leadership in saving lives from Lady Hawkins.{{cite web |url= http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/SearchUI/details?Uri=C10818997 |title=Merchant Navy Awards |work=The London Gazette |publisher=The National Archives |date=22 December 1942 |access-date=4 January 2014}} He was also awarded Lloyd's War Medal for Bravery at Sea.{{cite web |url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/30/a8649930.shtml |last=de Neumann |first=Bernard |title=Lloyd's War Medal for Bravery at Sea (Part Two) |work=WW2 People's War |publisher=BBC |date=19 January 2006 |access-date=4 January 2014}}

{{reflist|group=note}}

{{reflist}}

• {{cite book |last=Crabb |first=Brian James |year=2006 |title=Beyond the Call of Duty. The Loss of British Commonwealth Mercantile and Service Women at Sea During the Second World War |location=Donington |publisher=Shaun Tyas |isbn=1 900289 66-0}}
• {{cite book |last=Hannington |first=Felicity |year=1980 |title=The Lady Boats: The Life and Times of Canada's West Indies Merchant Fleet |location=Halifax, NS |publisher=Canadian Marine Transportation Centre, Dalhousie University |isbn=0770301894 }}
• {{cite book |last=Hocking |first=Charles |year=1989 |title=Dictionary of Disasters at Sea During the Age of Steam, Including Sailing Ships and Ships of War Lost in Action, 1824–1962 |location=London |publisher=London Stamp Exchange |isbn=0948130725 }}

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{{January 1942 shipwrecks}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lady Hawkins}}

Category:1928 ships

Category:Maritime incidents in January 1942

Category:Ocean liners of Canada

Category:Ships built on the River Mersey

Category:Ships sunk by German submarines in World War II

Category:Steamships of Canada

Category:Steam turbine-powered ships

Category:World War II shipwrecks in the Atlantic Ocean