RMS Orama (1911)

History
United Kingdom
Name	Orama
Namesake	Oorama Hill, South Australia
Owner	Orient Steam Navigation Company
Operator	1911: Anderson, Green & Company 1914: Royal Navy
Port of registry	Glasgow
Route	Tilbury – Gibraltar – Suez Canal – Colombo – Fremantle – Brisbane
Builder	John Brown & Company, Clydebank
Yard number	403
Launched	27 June 1911
Commissioned	as HMS Orama, 12 September 1914
Maiden voyage	10 November – 25 December 1911
Identification	UK official number 132989 code letters HTRP 1914: call sign MTW 1914: Pennant number M 61
Fate	Sunk, 19 October 1917
General characteristics
Type	Ocean liner
Tonnage	12,927 GRT, 8,179 NRT
Length	551.0 ft (167.9 m)
Beam	64.2 ft (19.6 m)
Depth	39.0 ft (11.9 m)
Installed power	14,000 IHP
Propulsion	2 × 4-cylinder triple-expansion engines 1 × low-pressure steam turbine 3 × screws
Speed	18 knots (33 km/h)
Capacity	1,305 passengers: 293 first class 145 second class 867 third class
Crew	(as AMC): 367
Armament	(as AMC): 8 × BL 6-inch Mk VII naval guns

RMS Orama was a British steam ocean liner and Royal Mail Ship. She was launched in 1911 for the Orient Steam Navigation Company. When new, she was the largest liner sailing between Great Britain and Australia.

In 1914 the British Admiralty requisitioned her and had her converted into an armed merchant cruiser (AMC). In 1915 she took part in the brief Battle of Más a Tierra off Chile. In 1917 a U-boat sank her in the Southwest Approaches.

She was the first of two Orient Line ships called Orama. The second was a 19,777 GRT turbine steamship that was launched in 1924 in England, converted into a troop ship in the Second World War and sunk by a German cruiser in the Norwegian campaign in 1940.^[1] There's not much information on the 1940 Orama because builder records were destroyed in the war and there are only a few photographs of the ship taken during its service life. It was sunk by SMS Admiral Hipper with the loss of 19 lives while survivors were picked up and imprisoned in Germany as POWs.

The name Orama comes from a hill in the County of Lytton, South Australia, which was originally "Oorama" and was shortened to "Orama".^[2][3]