 HM Hospital Ship Llandovery Castle
| |
| History | |
|---|---|
 United Kingdom | |
| Name | RMS Llandovery Castle |
| Namesake | Llandovery Castle |
| Operator |  Union-Castle Line |
| Builder | Barclay Curle, Glasgow |
| Yard number | 504 |
| Launched | 3 September 1913 |
| Completed | January 1914 |
| Fate | Requisitioned, 1916 |
 Canada | |
| Name | Llandovery Castle |
| Commissioned | 26 July 1916 |
| Fate | Sunk by SM U-86, 27 June 1918 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | Ocean liner / Hospital ship |
| Tonnage | 10,639 GRT |
| Length | 500 ft 1 in (152.43 m) |
| Beam | 63 ft 3 in (19.28 m) |
| Propulsion |
|
| Speed | 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph) |
| Capacity |
|
| Complement | 258 |
HMHS Llandovery Castle, built in 1914 in Glasgow as RMS Llandovery Castle for the Union-Castle Line, was one of five Canadian hospital ships that served in the First World War. On a voyage from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Liverpool, England, the ship was torpedoed off southern Ireland on 27 June 1918. The sinking was the deadliest Canadian naval disaster of the war. 234 doctors, nurses, members of the Canadian Army Medical Corps, soldiers and seamen died in the sinking and subsequent machine-gunning of lifeboats. Twenty five people are known to have survived. 24 were the occupants on a single life-raft. The incident became infamous internationally and was considered, after the Armenian genocide, as one of the war's worst atrocities. After the war, the case of Llandovery Castle was one of six alleged German war crimes prosecuted at the Leipzig trials.