SS Rohilla
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{{Use British English|date=December 2017}}
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{{Infobox ship image |Ship image=SS Rohilla, Port-Said.jpg |Ship caption=transport ship Rohilla at Port Said, 1914 }} {{Infobox ship career |Hide header= |Ship country=United Kingdom |Ship flag={{shipboxflag|United Kingdom|civil}} {{shipboxflag|UK|government}} |Ship name=Rohilla |Ship owner=British India Steam Navigation Co |Ship operator= |Ship route=1906: London – Calcutta |Ship ordered= |Ship builder=Harland & Wolff, Belfast |Ship yard number=381 |Ship way number= |Ship laid down= |Ship launched=6 September 1906 |Ship completed=16 November 1906 |Ship christened= |Ship acquired= |Ship in service= |Ship out of service= |Ship identification=*UK official number 124149
|Ship registry=Glasgow |Ship fate=On 30 October 1914, struck a reef at Saltwick, near Whitby, and sank. }} {{Infobox ship characteristics |Hide header= |Header caption= |Ship type= Passenger ship/troopship, later hospital ship |Ship tonnage= {{GRT|7114}}, {{NRT|3970}} |Ship displacement= |Ship length= {{cvt|460.1|ft|abbr=on}} |Ship beam= {{cvt|56.0|ft|abbr=on}} |Ship depth= {{cvt|30.6|ft|abbr=on}} |Ship power= {{convert|8000|ihp|lk=in|abbr=on}} |Ship propulsion= Twin Harland & Wolff quadruple expansion engines |Ship speed= {{convert|16.6|kn|lk=in}} |Ship capacity=167 passengers; later about 1,600 troops |Ship crew= |Ship notes=*sister ship: {{HMHS|Rewa | 2}}
}} |
Rohilla was a passenger steamer of the British India Steam Navigation Company which was built for service between the UK and India, and as a troopship. After becoming a hospital ship in the First World War, she ran aground in October 1914, near Whitby, and then salvaged out of the water by James Weatherill. The wreck resulted in the loss of 83 lives.
History
Rohilla was ordered in 1905 by the British India Steam Navigation Company (BI) from Harland & Wolff of Belfast, at the same time as sister ship {{HMHS|Rewa||2}} from William Denny & Bros at Dumbarton. They differed mainly in their engines: Rewa was triple-screw with steam turbines, while Rohilla had a pair of quadruple expansion steam engines, also made by Harland & Wolff, and twin screws. Rohilla{{'}}s engines totalled {{convert|8000|ihp|lk=in}}, producing {{convert|16.6|kn|lk=in}} on sea trials. Although ordered for the London to Calcutta service, increased competition prompted BI to design the two sisters to be suitable also as troopships.
The ship was named Rohilla in honour of the Rohillas, Pashtun highlanders who lived in Rohilkhand, east of Delhi, in the modern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
After entering service, the sisters were soon taken up for trooping, in 1908 for Rohilla as 'Troopship No.6'. Two years later they were the first BI ships to have wireless telegraphy installed, and were both hired in that year for the Coronation Fleet Review, carrying members of the House of Lords (Rewa) and House of Commons (Rohilla).
Loss
File:Rohilla (steamship) grounded 1914.JPG
Rohilla was called up at the outset of the First World War and converted into a naval hospital ship. HMHS (His Majesty's Hospital Ship) Rohilla had only a short life in that role. On 30 October 1914, sailing from South Queensferry, Firth of Forth for Dunkirk to evacuate wounded soldiers, the ship ran aground on Saltwick Nab, a reef about a mile east of Whitby, North Riding of Yorkshire, during a full North North East gale and with the lighthouses unlit due to the war. The reef is about {{convert|400|yd}} offshore and the ship soon broke her back.{{cite book|last1=Hocking|first1=Charles|title=Dictionary of Disasters at Sea During the Age of Steam: Vol II|year=1969|publisher=Lloyd's Register of Shipping|place=London|page=594}}{{cite news |title=Seventy lost when British hospital ship is wrecked |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/41792471/rohilla_hospital_ship_aground_1914/ |access-date=6 January 2020 |agency=Underwood & Underwood |publisher=The Fort Wayne News (Fort Wayne, Indiana) |date=18 November 1914 |page=2 |quote=Among those who were brought ashore by the life guards was the Rev. Holland Allen, chaplain of the Rohilla.}}
The conditions made rescue extremely difficult, but six lifeboats the John Fielden, Robert and Mary Ellis (Whitby), William Riley of Birmingham and Leamington (Upgang), the motor lifeboat Bradford Middlesbrough, Queensbury Scarborough, North Yorkshire, but it was the motor lifeboat Henry Vernon Tynemouth that was to take off the final souls and attempted to close on the wreck.
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01jrv9l/Coast_Series_7_Peril_from_the_Seas/ BBC: Coast, Series 7] Over the next three days, some of those who attempted to swim to safety in the raging seas were rescued, though many were lost, and lifeboats were able to rescue others.{{cite news|title=The Rohilla Wreck|url=http://www.rohilla.co.uk/shieldsdailynews_2ndnov.htm|access-date=30 July 2014|work=Shields Daily News|date=2 November 1914}} In all, 146 of the 229 on board, including Captain Neilson and all the nurses, as well as {{RMS|Titanic||2}} survivor Mary Kezia Roberts, survived.{{cite web|title=Titanic Survivors|date=9 September 2002 |url=http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-survivor/mary-kezziah-roberts.html|publisher=Encyclopedia Titanica|access-date=29 July 2014}}{{cite news|title=The Wrecked Hospital Ship|work=The Times|date=1 November 1914|place=London|page=1}}{{cite news|title=Hospital Ship Wreck|work=The Times|date=2 November 1914|place=London|page=3}}
Captain Nielson believed that the ship had struck a mine before grounding.{{cite news|title=The Rohilla Mined|work=The Times|date=6 November 1914|place=London|page=5}} An inquest jury exonerated Nielson from all blame and recommended that all passenger vessels carry rocket apparatus rather than rely on rockets fired to the ship from shore, and also that a motor lifeboat be stationed at Whitby.
The Gold Medal of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, the Institute's highest honour, was presented to Superintendent Major H. E. Burton and Coxswain Robert Smith of the Tynemouth lifeboat Henry Vernon and to Coxswain Thomas Langlands of the Whitby lifeboat. The Empire Gallantry Medal (subsequently changed to the George Cross) was awarded to Burton and Smith in 1924.{{cite news|title=Lifeboat-men's Gallantry, Court Circular|work=The Times|date=1 July 1924|place=London|pages=13 & 19}}{{cite news|title=Memorial to a Lifeboat Hero|work=The Times|date=6 June 1928|place=London|page=21}} In 1917 a monument was erected at Whitby by the British India Steam Navigation Company, commemorating all those who lost their lives in the tragedy.{{cite news|title=A 'Rohilla' Monument at Whitby|url=http://www.cpgw.org.uk/craven_herald_articles.cfm?sID=046-10&arID=6|access-date=30 July 2014|work=Craven Herald|date=15 June 1917|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140730051422/http://www.cpgw.org.uk/craven_herald_articles.cfm?sID=046-10&arID=6|archivedate=30 July 2014}}
See also
References
{{reflist}}
Further reading
- Brittain, Colin (2014). Into the Maelstrom: The Wreck of HMHS Rohilla. The History Press. {{ISBN|978-0-75249-7655}}
- [http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/hospital-ship-hmhs-rohilla-sunk-512472882 HMS Rohilla] photograph at Port Said(archived)
External links
- [https://www.britishpathe.com/video/hospital-ship-rohilla-aka-rescue-of-survivors-from Footage of the wreck and people being rescued from the sea (hosted on British Pathé)]
{{Lifeboat wrecks and rescues}}
{{October 1914 shipwrecks}}
{{coord missing|North Sea}}
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Category:World War I shipwrecks in the North Sea
Category:Shipwrecks of England
Category:Ships built in Belfast
Category:Maritime incidents in October 1914
Category:1914 disasters in the United Kingdom
Category:Ships of the British India Steam Navigation Company
Category:Hospital ships in World War I
Category:Hospital ships of the Royal Navy