History







RETURN TO THE HOMEPAGE                                                                                                                                                                                                                         M.V. CIRCASSIA 1937


Prewar Service Career (1937 - 1939):

The Circassia was built in 1937 by Fairfield Shipbuilders & Engineers Ltd, Govan, Glasgow for Anchor Line and their service to India. Indeed she was the first motor ship built for Anchor Line. She sailed on her maiden voyage from Glasgow and Liverpool to Bombay in October 1937. During the Second World War, like many oceanliners, she was requisitioned as a troopship. On the 3rd September 1937 when war was declared, the Circassia was in Aden on her way to Bombay. Completing that run, she arrived back in Glasgow in October 1939 and was requisitioned by the Admiralty for war duties.

War Service (1939 - 1946):

She was initially used as an armed merchant cruiser before becoming a troopship from 1942. On a voyage to North Africa she was in the same convoy as the Cameronia when that ship was torpedoed. With the convoy under attack from the air, the Circassia was credited with having shot down one of the planes. After further trips to North Africa she returned to the Clyde in spring 1943 when she was rearmed with anti-aircraft weapons. She was next seen carrying out exercises in assault landing on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. In June 1943 she took on board troops of the First Canadian Division and joined other ships in Gareloch to prepare for Operation Husky which was the Allied Landings in Sicily.

The Circassia had a busy war and her troopship duties took her as far as her familiar port of Bombay before returning to Naples to be detailed for service with the US Naval Forces.

In January 1944 she sailed with American forces and took part in the landings at Salerno. When she arrived back in the Clyde in September she had been operational for nearly 15 months. But soon she was off again to Bombay and twice to Odessa with liberated Russian PoWs before bringing home British prisoners who had been liberated in the Russian advances.

Even in July 1945 she departed Glasgow again for the Far East, putting Indian troops ashore at Morib in the Malacca Straits. She arrived safely back in the Clyde in March 1946 and was refitted to return to peacetime duties.

Postwar Service Career (1946 - 1966):

But it was not until 1948 that she was fit to resume her peacetime service to Bombay with Anchor Line. She then continued in this long lived service until 1966 when Anchor Line decided to discontinue the service after 110 years. The Circassia made the final passenger sailing and closed 110 years of history. This also was the end for her career as well as she was soon sold for scrap and broken up in Alicante in Spain in Spring 1966. It was the end of an era.












(c) The AJN Transport Britain Collection 2010                                                                                                                                                                                 A Edward Elliott