Requisitioned Auxiliary – Chakrata

 

CHAKRATA

 

 

 

 CHAKRATA

 

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