SS Gairsoppa

SS Gairsoppa was a British cargo steamship that was built in 1919 and sunk in the Battle of the Atlantic in 1941. 85 of her complement were killed, and only one person survived. When she was sunk, her cargo included an estimated 7 million ounces of silver bullion. In 2012 and 2013 a US company recovered part of the bullion, and in 2014 the Royal Mint struck 20,000 silver coins from it.

Gairsoppa was a War Standard "B" type steamship: one of a set of designs ordered by the UK Shipping Controller in large numbers to replace merchant ships lost during the First World War. She was launched as War Roebuck, but renamed before she was completed. The British India Steam Navigation Company (BI) owned and managed her throughout her career.

The ship was named after either the village of Gerusoppa in Karnataka, southern India, or the Jog Falls near Gerusoppa, which India's British rulers called Gairsoppa Falls. Gerusoppa was once the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire, and has the remains of a 16th-century Jain temple.[1]

Building

In 1919 and 1920 BI acquired 16 new "B" type cargo ships from various UK shipbuilders. The Shipping Controller had ordered each of them with a standard "War ____" name. BI renamed each of them with a name beginning with "G"; either before they were launched; or between launch and completion.

Gairsoppa was the first of four "B" type ships that BI acquired from Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company, who had shipyards on the River Tyne at Hebburn and Jarrow. Palmers also built War Zebra, which BI renamed Gurna; War Llama, which BI renamed Gamaria, and War Reynard, which BI renamed Garmula.

Palmers built Gairsoppa at Hebburn as yard number 894.[2] She was launched as War Roebuck on 12 August 1919, renamed Gairsoppa, and completed on 17 October that year. Her lengths were 412.0 ft overall[3] and 399.3 ft registered. Her beam was 52.2 ft, her depth was 28.5 ft, and her draught was 25 ft. Her tonnages were, , and. She had berths for four passengers.[3]

Gairsoppa had a single screw, driven by a three-cylinder triple-expansion engine built by Palmers. It was rated at 517 NHP or 3,000 ihp, She achieved 11.7 kn on her sea trials.[3]

Peacetime career

BI registered Gairsoppa at Glasgow. Her official number was 141924 and her code letters were KCRV. The ship was equipped for wireless telegraphy from new. On 29 April 1930 Gairsoppa grounded at Fulta Point in the Hooghly River in West Bengal. She was refloated undamaged under her own power later that day.[3][4] By 1930 Gairsoppa's call sign was GCZB. In 1934 this superseded her code letters.

Loss

Toward the end of 1940 Gairsoppa left Calcutta bound for the UK. In the first week of January 1941 she called at Durban and Cape Town in South Africa. On 22 January she arrived off Freetown in Sierra Leone, where she waited to join a convoy to the UK.[5] Her cargo included 2,600 tons of pig iron, 1,765 tons of tea, 2,369 tons of general cargo, 200 tons of silver ingots and coins,[6] and a consignment of mail.[7] The silver was worth £600,000 in 1941,[6] and was destined for the Royal Mint to mint new coins.[8] Gairsoppa's crew comprised 11 UK officers, crewmen, and DEMS gunners; 84 lascars; and one Chinese carpenter.[9]

On 30 January 1941 Gairsoppa left Freetown with SL 64: a convoy of 30 merchant ships bound for Liverpool.[10] However, heavy weather slowed the convoy, and Gairsoppa's bunkers ran low.[11] On 15 February her Master, Captain Gerald Hyland, detached her from SL64, reduced her speed to 5 kn to conserve coal, and changed course for the nearest sheltered anchorage, which was Galway Bay in neutral Ireland[11] for bunkering.[3]

A German Focke-Wulf Fw 200 aircraft circled Gairsoppa at 08:00 on 16 February.[12] Then GS U-101 (1940) sighted her at 1800 hrs, but heavy seas delayed its attack. U-101 fired a spread of two torpedoes at 2328 hrs and a third torpedo at 2332 hrs, all of which missed. At 0008 hrs on 17 February U-101 fired a fourth torpedo, which hit the starboard side of Gairsoppa's number 2 hold. The ship caught fire and settled by the bow. At 0020 hrs U-101 fired a fifth torpedo as a coup de grâce, but it missed.[6]

Gairsoppa's crew abandoned ship in three of her lifeboats, and she sank about 20 minutes after being hit. Her reported position was in the Western Approaches at 50°N, -14°W, about 300 nmi southwest of Galway Bay. The boats became separated in the heavy sea. Two of the boats, and their occupants, were never seen again.[6]

Lifeboat voyage

The other boat, commanded by Second Officer Richard Ayres, contained eight European and 23 lascar crew. Ayres used a sea anchor to lay to until dawn, and then set sail and set a course east.[13] The boat's rudder was broken, so Ayres used an oar to steer.

The boat was victualled with drinking water, hardtack, and cans of condensed milk. Ayres rationed the provisions, but the drinking water ran out after eight days. In the first seven days, all but seven men died from either exposure or drinking seawater. The boat's remaining occupants contracted frostbite.[13]

On 1 March 1941 Ayres' boat sighted the Lizard Lighthouse on the coast of Cornwall. The men were too weak to row, but they shortened sail.[13] As they neared the shore, in Caerthillian Cove, in the parish of Landewednack, a wave overturned the boat, drowning four of the men. Another wave righted the boat again, and Ayres dragged himself, the radio officer, and a deck hand back into the boat. Another wave overturned the boat a second time. The three men clung to the keel, but the radio officer was swept away.

Ayres and the deck hand reached the shore. The deck hand got onto a rock, but a wave swept him off and he was killed.[13] A group of three evacuee schoolgirls was walking on the clifftop and saw the incident. One of the girls ran down to the beach, while another alerted a local farmworker, Brian Richards, who was also a member of HM Coastguard. He arrived in time to pull Ayres unconscious from the sea, as the only survivor.[12]

Ayres was carried to a local house, and then admitted to the cottage hospital at Helston.[12] The bodies of the radio officer, deck hand, and two of the lascars were recovered, and are buried in the yard of St Wynwallow's Church, Landewednack.[12][6][14][15]

Monuments

The 11 European officers and men who were killed are commemorated on panel 51 of the Second World War monument at Tower Hill Memorial in London. The Chinese carpenter and 69 of the lascars who were killed are commemorated on a roll of honour, one copy of which is held at Chittagong War Cemetery in Bangladesh, and the other at the Indian Seamen's Home at Mumbai in India.[16][17]

Richard Ayres

In November 1941 Ayres was made an MBE for his efforts to save his shipmates.[13] Lloyd's of London awarded him Lloyd's War Medal for Bravery at Sea.[18] He spent nine months on full pension to recover, and then returned to sea with BI. He later was promoted to captain, joined the Royal Naval Reserve, and then became a BI cargo superintendent, first in India and later in Malaya.[12] He retired in 1964, and died in 1992.[11]

Salvage

Bibliography