RMS Lancastria - Career

Career

Launched on the Clyde in Scotland, in 1920 by William Beardmore and Company of Glasgow, as the Tyrrhenia for the Anchor Line, a subsidiary of Cunard, the 16,243 ton, 578-foot (176 m) long liner could carry 2,200 passengers in three classes. She made her maiden voyage, Glasgow-Québec-Montreal, on 19 June 1922.

She was refitted for just two classes and renamed Lancastria in 1924, after passengers complained that they could not properly pronounce Tyrrhenia. She sailed scheduled routes from Liverpool to New York until 1932, and was then used as a cruise ship in the Mediterranean and Northern Europe. On 10 October 1932, Lancastria rescued the crew of the Belgian cargo ship Scheldestad which had been abandoned in a sinking condition in the Bay of Biscay. In 1934, the Catholic Boy Scouts of Ireland chartered the Lancastria for a pilgrimage to Rome. With the outbreak of the Second World War, she carried cargo before being requisitioned in April 1940 as a troopship, becoming the HMT Lancastria. She was first used to assist in the evacuation of troops from Norway.

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