SS Albania was a cargo liner laid down in 1914 by Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company Ltd. Greenock, Scotland for the Cunard Line. Owing to the First World War, she wasn't completed until 1920. Designed to maximize cargo capacity, passenger accommodations were limited to the shelter and "tween" decks. Originally intended for the Liverpool New York run, she was transferred in April of 1922 to the Canadian route. Ultimately the vessel proved a disappointment for Cunard, being too small to operate effectively as a passenger liner and too big for a freighter,[1] and was laid up in 1925 until purchased in 1930 by the Italian company Liberia Triestina who renamed her SS California.[2][3] She was converted for use as a hospital ship in 1935.[citation needed]
Loss
On 11 August 1941, California was torpedoed and sunk off Syracuse by a Fairey Swordfish aircraft of 830 Squadron, Fleet Air Arm, operating out of Malta.[4]
References
- ^ Wills, Elspeth (2010). The Fleet1840-2010. London: The Open Agency. p. 67. ISBN 9780954245184.
- ^ Cairis, Nicholas T. (1979). Passenger Liners of the World Since 1893. Bonanza Books. pp. 10. ISBN 0517-28875-3.
- ^ "SS Albania II". Norway Heritage Emigrant Ship Database. Retrieved 3 August 2014.
- ^ "Naval Events, August 1941, Part 1 of 2, Friday 1st - Thursday 14th". Naval History. Retrieved 15 December 2011.
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