Official Number: 133109
Laid down:
Builder: D & W Henderson & Co Ltd., Partick, Glasgow
Launched: 10 February 1913
Pennant No: Y 3.1853
Into Service: 25 August 1914
Out of service: 9 August 1918
Fate: August 1933 broken up
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:
1913 laid down for F C Strick & Co but sold on the stocks
10 February 1913 launched by D & W Henderson & Co Ltd., Meadowside Yard, Partick, Glasgow as Yard No: 482 named Chakrata for British Indian Steam Navigation Co Ltd., London
19 March 1913 completed
25 August 1914 requisitioned for service an an Indian Expeditionary Force Transport – name unchanged – carried 269 troops from the Meerut Division to Marseilles as one of eighteen B.I. ships carrying troops in the same convoy until 17 December 1914
9 August 1915 sailed Malta
16 October 1915 sailed London for Gibraltar
6 November 1916 sailed Sydney, NSW for Calcutta
24 April 1917 re-deployed as a Transport carrying wheat from Bombay until 8 June 1917
9 June 1917 re-deployed to the Commercial Branch for the Military a/c as a transport carrying nitrates from Chile until 5 October 1917
6 October 1917 re-deployed as a collier until 24 November 1917
25 November 1917 re-deployed to the Commercial Branch for the Military a/c as a transport carrying nitrates from Chile until 16 March 1918
17 March 1918 re-deployed as a collier and was then transferred to the Liner section until 8 August 1918
29 June 1918 was sighted and boarded by the Armed Boarding Ship HMS PERTH – checked while on the Perim Patrol and allowed to proceed
31 December 1918 sailed London for Bombay and Karachi
28 December 1919 between Suez and Aden sighted steering NNW by the Sea Plane Carrier HMS ARK ROYAL
15 March 1922 between Bombay and Colombo spoken to by the light cruiser HMS SOUTHAMPTON
24 August 1933 after sale for £8,000 arrived at Osaka for demolition by Japanese ship breakers
Notes:
Was one of four sisterships and was the first of two ships to bear this name in the British India Fleet