Requisitioned Auxiliary – Huntley

 SS Ophelia

 

 

 SS Ophelia

 

Official Number:                     139061

Builder:                                  Flensburger Schiffbau Ges, Flensburg

Pennant No:                   

Launched:                              16 January 1912

Into Service:                           1914

Out of service:                        1915

Fate:                                     1915 torpedoed and sunk

 

Items of historic interest involving this ship: –

 

Background Data:  One of an additional group of ships requisitioned by the Admiralty during WW1 to augment the ships of the RFA

 

Career Data:

 

 

16 January 1912 launched by Flensburger Schiffbau Ges, Flensburg as Yard Nr 316 as the cargo vessel named OPHELIA for A. Kirsten, Hamburg

March 1912 completed

7 October 1914 sailed Wilhelmshaven to allegedly seek for injured sailors from the German torpedo boat S116 which had been sunk on 6 October 1914

18 October 1914 captured by HMS METOR in the North Sea while acting as a Hospital Ship in position 51.51N 03.45E. Seized as a prize by the Admiralty, taken to Yarmouth and was subsequently renamed Huntley

19 October 1914 at Yarmouth Roads

20 October 1914 was at anchor between the Nore and Mouse Lightships

4 May 1915 the seizure of the Ophelia was considered by the Prize Court before the President Sir Samuel Evans

21 May 1915 the Prize Court found that the vessel was correctly seized by the Royal Navy as a Prize as the Ophelia was being used for military purposes and was not constructed, adapted or used for the purposes of a hospital ship

20 December 1915 torpedoed and sunk by UB-10 in the English Channel off Boulogne while on passage from Portishead to Boulogne with a cargo of petrol with the loss of 2 lives

8 May 1916 the decision of the Prize Court was considered by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council – press report herewith –

 Press cutting Ophelia Prize Court Appeal

Press Report from the Birmingham Gazette 9 May 1916