SS Mongolian
The 4,838
grt single screw steel steamship Mongolian was built for the Allan Line
Steamship Company Limited of Glasgow, by D&W Henderson Ltd, shipbuilders,
Glasgow in Partick in 1891. She was a sizeable 400 feet in length with a
beam of 45 feet and a depth of hold of 30 feet 6 inches. Her net tonnage
was 3,088 and her international code letters M.B.S.W. The Mongolian's
coal-fired triple-expansion engines developed a powerful 600hp.
Notwithstanding, she had been built at a time when the transition from sail to
steam had not been fully and completely made. As a consequence, she was
fitted out with two towering masts rising up some 100 feet, the foremast being
rigged for sail as a tall ship when needed to supplement her engines.
The Allan line, which ordered her construction was more properly
known as Montreal Ocean Steamship Company, founded in 1854. The company
began sailing from Britain to Canada in 1855, voyages between Liverpool and
Quebec were every two weeks. The Allan Line was thus long established in
transatlantic voyaging by the time that the SS Mongolian joined the fleet in
1891. The main bulk of her passengers were immigrants fleeing poverty for
a new life in America or Canada.
On 21 July 1918, her bunkers full of coal, she nudged out into
the River Tees and on to Tees Bay. Her route would take her south down the
east coast a few miles offshore. She was unaware of the danger in the dark
silty waters ahead of her, her lay the UC-70 of the Second Flanders Flotilla.
The UC-70 was a small U-boat of just 417 tons and some 49 meters
long. She was fitted with two forward facing torpedo tubes and one
aft-facing tube. These tubes were mounted outside of her pressure hull and
could not be loaded while submerged as the UC-70s primary function was as a mine
laying vessel. She carried a formidable cargo of 18 mines that were loaded
into six tubes running fore and aft along the forward section of her hull.
Small U-boats such as the UC-70 were designed to operate in
shallow coastal waters laying minefields across the entrance to enemy ports and
coastal shipping lanes. UC-70's torpedo tubes were loaded and ready to use
should any other worthwhile prey pass before her. It was in just some
unfortunate circumstances that the SS Mongolian passed in front of her.
The
tell-tale plume of black smoke from the approaching Mongolian's single smoke
stack probably first alerted UC-70 to the possibility of a kill. The slow
old, large profile of the Mongolian made her an easy target. A torpedo
from UC-70 was loosed and blasted into her port side in the vicinity of her
boiler-room. in a split second her hull had been ripped open to the sea.
Cold, green sea water poured into her innards, immediately altering her trim and
forcing her engines out of operation. She slewed to a wallowing halt and
started to settle steadily into the water.
The order to abandon ship was given and the wooden lifeboats
were swung out from their davits above her large central superstructure, and
lowered. As her crew abandoned ship, they knew t5han many of their
shipmates had not survived. When the final headcount was made, 36 of her
crew had perished.
As the waters closed over the trusty Mongolian, her two towering
masts were the last visible sign of her presence above the waves. They too
soon disappeared beneath the waves and she plunged down through 40 meters of
cold dark water, eventually impacting the seabed. The cruel war had
claimed another victim
More details on the SS Mongolian are
contained in Dive England's Greatest Shipwrecks.