City Of Simla (Ss) Wreck

Wreck No: W07230, Place of Loss: Malin Head, 78km NW of, Source of Coordinate: GSI Wreck Data, Description: The City of Simla was a 10,138-ton, steel merchant steamship of Glasgow, owned by Ellerman Lines. It was built by W. Gray Co. Ltd. of West Hartlepool in 1921 and was propelled by four steam turbine engines, giving it a maximum speed of 13.5 knots. On the day it was sunk, the vessel was en route from London to Cape Town and Bombay, under the command of Herbert Percival, and carrying 183 crew, 167 passengers and 3,000 tons of general cargo. It was one of 27 vessels in convoy OB- 216, being escorted by one escort ship, one sloop, three corvettes and one destroyer. At approximately 2.00am on 21 September the vessel was attacked and sunk by U-138, commanded by Oberleutnant zur See Wolfgang Lüth. Two passengers, including a 17-year-old boy, and one crew member were killed by the explosion when the torpedo hit the stern. The remaining crew and passengers abandoned the crippled vessel. Of those, 318 were picked up by the SS Guinean and later transferred to the destroyer HMS Vanquisher, while a Belgian trawler rescued 17 crew and 12 passengers. The badly damaged City of Simla sank a day later. In all, four ships from convoy OB-216 were sunk by U-138 off the coast of Donegal over a two-day period, including the Boka (eight dead), the New Sevilla (two dead) and the Empire Adventure (21 dead). On the seafloor The wreck of the City of Simla was located in 1969 by Risdon Beazley Marine Ltd., and was to be found lying upside-down on the seabed with its stern blown off. The vessel is orientated NW-SE on the seafloor and measures 107m in length, 29m in width and has a maximum height of 20m above the seabed.