![]() Empire Windrush
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History | |
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Name |
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Namesake |
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Owner |
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Operator |
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Port of registry | |
Route | 1931: Hamburg – Buenos Aires |
Builder | Blohm+Voss, Hamburg |
Yard number | 492 |
Launched | 13 December 1930 |
Maiden voyage | 28 March – 30 June 1931 |
Identification |
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Fate | caught fire and sank, 1954 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | Monte-class passenger ship |
Tonnage | |
Length | 500.3 ft (152.5 m) |
Beam | 65.7 ft (20.0 m) |
Draught | 26 ft 4+1⁄2 in (8.04 m) |
Depth | 37.8 ft (11.5 m) |
Decks | 4 |
Installed power | 6,880 bhp (5,130 kW) |
Propulsion |
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Speed | 14 knots (26 km/h) |
Crew | 222 |
Sensors and processing systems |
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Notes | sister ships: Monte Olivia, Monte Sarmiento, Monte Cervantes, Monte Pascoal |
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HMT Empire Windrush was a passenger motor ship that was launched in Germany in 1930 as Monte Rosa. She was designed as an ocean liner for Hamburg Südamerikanische DG's route between Germany and South America. She became a cruise ship in 1933 and a troopship in 1940. In 1944 she was damaged by two Allied attacks; the first with aircraft, and the second with limpet mines.
The United Kingdom seized her as a prize of war in 1945, had her repaired in 1946, and renamed her HMT Empire Windrush in 1947. "HMT" stands for "His Majesty's Transport". The New Zealand Shipping Company managed her for the Ministry of Transport until 1954, when she caught fire in the Mediterranean Sea, killing four of the people aboard her. A Royal Navy cruiser tried to tow her to safety, but Empire Windrush sank off the coast of Algeria.
In 1948 Empire Windrush brought 1,027 West Indian passengers and two stowaways from Jamaica to the Port of Tilbury near London.[1][2] 802 of these passengers gave their last country of residence as somewhere in the Caribbean: of these, 693 intended to settle in the United Kingdom.[1] Also aboard were 66 Poles who intended to settle in Britain.[3]
Empire Windrush was not the first ship to carry a large group of West Indian people to the United Kingdom, as two other ships had arrived the previous year.[4] But her 1948 voyage became very well-known, and British Caribbean people who came to the United Kingdom in the period after World War II, including those who came on other ships, are often referred to as the Windrush generation.
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