MV Bretagne of 1937

The Norwegian motor vessel Bretagne seen here shortly after her completion in 1937, apparently after being taken into service by the Olsen Company.

The Bretagne (3284 grt / 1960 nrt / 2679 tdw) was ordered in 1936 as a combined passenger-cargo vessel and completed in April 1937 by the Akers Mek. Verksted A/S, Oslo, yard number 470. Powered by a 9-cyl. Burmeister & Wain oil engine with 2800 HP, service speed 13 kn. She had accommodations for 148 passengers. First owned by Fred. Olsen & Co., Oslo the ship was employed on the Newcastle-Kristiansand-Oslo run until the outbreak of World War II on 1 Sept 1939.
In April 1940 the Bretagne was captured by German Army troops at Oslo, when Norway was occupied on 9 April 1940 by Wehrmacht forces within Operation Weserübung. Bretagne first remained under her Norwegian ownership by in 1941 the ship was requisitioned by the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) and commissioned on 31 March 1941 as an accommodation ship. During a relocation to northern Norway the Bretagne was attacked on 9 Nov 1941 at 1653 h by the Soviet submarine SC-421 (Kpt.Lt. Nikolai A. Lunin) off the Lopphavet with 2 torpedoes. They both missed and detonated at a submerged rock in position 70.22N 22.02E, misleading the Soviet commander to claim the ship as sunk, estimated at 10,000 GRT ! The escorting patrol craft I-18 dropped 2 depth charges and the small convoy withdrew without further incident. In 1943 the Bretagne became a war transport and survived the war virtually undamaged.
In 1945 handed back to her pre-war owner, Bretagne was employed on the Oslo-Newcastle run, since 1953 on the Oslo-Antwerp run. In 1958 sold to Greece, and owned by the Hellenic Mediterranean Lines, Piraeus, renamed Massalia. She was refurbished in the same year, apparently with new engines installed, because her cruising speed is listed since that time as 16 kn, passenger accommodations increased to 346. Massalia served on the Marseille-Genoa-Piraeus-Limassol-Beirut-Port Said-Alexandria-run and backwards. In April 1967 the ship was laid up in the Eleusis Bay and in March 1974 sold for scrap to P. Skounis & I. Efthimiou, Eleusis.
For some purpose a wartime (?) censor had erased the funnel markings and the direction finder on the bridge, although this known photographs also exists without this censorship.