SS Thurso

Career (UK)
Name:	SS Thurso
Owner:	Ellerman's Wilson Line
Builder:	S.P. Austin & Son Ltd, Sunderland
Completed:	1919
Renamed:	Launched as War Bramble Completed as Thurso
Homeport:	Hull
Fate:	Sunk on 15 June 1942
General characteristics
Tonnage:	2,436 tons
Length:	303 ft 2 in (92.4 m)
Beam:	43 ft (13.1 m)
Draught:	20 ft 8 in (6.3 m)
Propulsion:	triple-expansion engines 266 n.h.p.
Crew:	36

SS Thurso was a cargo steamship operated by Ellerman's Wilson Line. She was sunk during the Second World War by a German submarine.

Thurso was built in 1919 by S. P. Austin & Sons in Sunderland. Displacing 2,436 tons she entered service with Ellerman Lines, and took part in the Second World War. Under her master, William Walker, Thurso was part of convoy HG 84, which had left Lisbon for Liverpool, travelling via Gibraltar where they called on 9 June. Thurso carried 850 tons of cork, general cargo, and 1500 bags of mail for German Prisoners of War in Britain. She had a crew of 36 and six gunners.

The convoy was sighted off Cape Finisterre early in the morning of 15 June 1942 by U-552, under Kapitänleutnant Erich Topp. Topp fired three torpedoes at the convoy between 04.32 and 04.34 hours. Thurso was sailing in the middle, and was one of two ships hit and sunk, the other being SS City of Oxford. 13 of Thurso's crew were lost, the master, 22 crew members and six gunners survived to be picked up by the corvette HMS Marigold and were landed at Greenock.

References

• [1]
• [2]
• People’s War site by BBC Radio Merseyside’s People’s War
• [3]