Malines

Ownership

1921 Great Eastern Railway Company

1923 LNER.

11/1940 The Admiralty

1943 Ministry of War Transport

Capacity

Passengers, day 430 1^st. class, 1250 2^nd. class.

Night berths 263 1^st. class, 100 2^nd. class

Cargo, 500 tons

Routes

Harwich - Antwerp (British Mail Route to Belgium)

Shipbuilder

Sir W.G. Armstrong, Whitworth & Co. Ltd., High Walker, Newcastle (yard no. 972)

Launched 06/01/1921, Completed 07/1921

Dimensions

GRT: 2969

Length: 320.7ft.

Beam: 43.2 ft.

Engine builder

Wallsend Engineering & Slipway Co. Ltd., Wallsend

Propulsion

4 Brown Curtis steam turbines SR geared to 2 propeller shafts, 12500 SHP,

21 knots

Notes

Sister to ANTWERP and BRUGES, she was the last vessel built for the G.E.R.  In May 1940 she was sent to Rotterdam to evacuate British civilians, under heavy bombing attacks by the advancing Germans she also collected the crew from the scuttled ST. DENIS and sailed unlit at night.

Impressed for the Dunkirk evacuation, she made two trips back to Dover and Folkestone with a total of 1469 troops, some rescued from the sinking destroyer H.M.S. GRAFTON. In June 1940 she took part in the evacuations from Cherbourg, Jersey and Guernsey to Southampton and Weymouth.

Requisitioned by the Admiralty in late 1940 and commissioned as a convoy escort H.M.S. MALINES, she sailed to the Mediterranean via the Cape. She operated as a troopship for much of the time. On 19 July 1942 she was torpedoed by Italian aircraft and beached near Port Said, but was refloated in January 1943 and transferred to the Ministry of War Transport, becoming a training ship at Kabret in early 1944.

Arriving back in the Tyne under tow in November 1945, she was laid up unrepaired and broken up at Dunston on Tyne in April 1948.

Beaching Report

The following naval report was written by Lt Cdr Leonard N Mates, commander of HMS Malines during the attack, and describes the attack and beaching: (pages will open in a new tab)

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