Hannington Court (2)

From SN Guides

Image 1:

Introduction

Court Line used the name Hannington Court for three ships:

• Hannington Court (1) - a cargo ship completed in 1912
• Hannington Court (2) - a cargo ship completed in 1939
• Hannington Court (3) - a cargo ship completed in 1954

Hannington Court (2) has a short working life of just over 2 years. Launched just before the beginning of WW2 she took part in a significant number of convoys but caught fire off the coast of South Africa and was sunk by a British warship to avoid her becoming an obstruction.

Basic Data

• Type: Cargo ship
• Registered owners,managers and operators: Court Line Ltd. - Managers Haldin & Philipps Ltd. London
• Builders: William Doxford & Sons Ltd.
• Yard: Pallion Sunderland
• Country: UK
• Yard number: 649
• Registry: N/K
• Official number: 167222
• Signal letters: N/K
• Call sign: N/K
• Classification society: N/K
• Gross tonnage: 5,449
• Net tonnage: 3,247
• Deadweight: N/K
• Length: 429.7 ft
• Breadth: 57.7 ft
• Depth: 26.5 ft
• Draught: N/K
• Engines: 3 cylinder 2.S.C.S.A oil engine
• Engine builders: William Doxford & Sons
• Works: Sunderland
• Country: UK
• Power: N/K
• Propulsion: Single screw
• Speed: 13 knots
• Cargo capacity: N/K
• Crew: N/K

Career Highlights

• 22 Feb 1939: Launched
• Apr 1939: Completed
• 13 Jul 1941: Caught fire
• 20 Jul 1941: Sunk by gunfire

Service Pre-WW2

No information about service before WW2 is currently available.

Participation in WW2 Convoys

The data in the following table has been extracted from External Resource #1.

A key to the routes for these convoys can be found on this page: World War 2 Convoy Names

Hannington Court (2) took part in 19 convoys.

Sinking

On 12 July 1941 Hannington Court left Table Bay for the UK with a cargo of 8,000 tons of copper and chrome ore, tobacco, sugar, maize and carbide. Early next morning, following an explosion in her engine room, she caught fire. After fighting the fire for 3 ½ hours her crew were forced to abandon ship. Two of her engineers had been lost in the explosion and resulting fire and were forever to remain at their posts in the engine room.

That afternoon the British merchant Burdwan picked up the survivors and then managed to put a tow aboard the stricken ship and towed her towards Cape Town. After 5 hours the tow parted and she was left to drift. Then several mine-sweepers of the S.A.N.F. tried without success to take her in tow. On the fourth day the Admiralty tug St. Dogmael towed her for several hours until she had to cast the tow in order to return to Simonstown to re-fuel. On the sixth day the Table Bay tug T.S. McEwen got a line across the ships stern and took up the tow. Early next day the still burning ship again broke free. The British cruiser Dragon arrived from Port Elizabeth but the rough seas prevented anyone from boarding Hannington Court. As the evening approached the order was given to sink her by gunfire and it took 13 hits from 6 inch shells before she headed to the bottom.

External resources

• Convoyweb (Arnold Hague Convoy Database): [1]
• Miramar Ship Index: [2]
• Information extracted from Lloyds Registers
• Norman Middlemiss: Travel of the Tramps - Twenty Tramp Fleets ISBN: 1871128021

Images

Image 1: Photo from the SN Galleries provided by Stuart Smith

Contributors

1. Basic data provided by John Powell and Clive Ketley
2. Additional research and formatting of entry by Benjidog