Counties Ship Management
In 1920 Manuel Kulukundis (1898–1988) from the Aegean island of Kasos moved to London, England and started work in a shipping office.
One of these was Elder Dempster Lines, whose fleet included 24 First World War standard cargo ships that it had to sell quickly and at low cost in order to survive.
Its ships included the Illinois which it bought from Compagnie Générale Transatlantique in 1934, renamed Mount Pentelikon and registered in Piraeus.
R&K bought old second-hand vessels and established a nominally separate British company to own each ship.
[1] Surrey Steamship Co. Ltd. was created to own Box Hill,[1] which Hawthorn Leslie at Hebburn on the River Tyne had built in 1920 as the Glentworth.
[2] Sussex Steamship Co. Ltd. was created to own Bury Hill, which had been built by Richardson, Duck and Company at Thornaby-on-Tees in 1917 as the Cardigan.
[1] Acquisitions in 1936 included two more First World War standard ships: the Campden Hill and the Muneric.
Other 1936 acquisitions included Inverleith which had been built as a tanker but converted to a dry cargo ship.
William Hamilton & Co built Mount Ida for R&K in 1938, who created Atlanticos Steam Ship Co to own her and registered her in Piraeus, Greece.
On 9 October 1939 she ran aground on Ower Bank in the North Sea off Norfolk, England.
African Prince was a First World War B type standard merchant ship built in 1917 and became Pentridge Hill under CSM's Dorset Steamship Company in 1936.
[1] Others were more modern, such as the 4,318 ton Peebles which had been built by William Doxford & Sons in Sunderland in 1930 and launched as Gracechurch.
Brockley Hill Steamship Co Ltd. was created in 1939 to buy the 5,297 ton Penteli, which had been built by Caird & Co. in Greenock in 1919 as the War Burman.
[1] Exceptions included Sussex Steamships Co's 4,542 ton Bury Hill which was wrecked off the coast of West Africa in 1936[7] and Pearlstone which reverted to her owners in 1938.
[4] She was laden with pig iron and scrap steel, and quickly sank with the loss of all hands.
[1] She was salvaged and rebuilt, and the British Ministry of War Transport (MoWT) took her over as Empire Tower.
[14] Two of CSM's 7,628 ton cargo steamers were equipped as CAM ships, each having a catapult on her bow to launch a Hawker Sea Hurricane.
[15] In March 1943 a U-boat torpedoed and sank her in the Indian Ocean off the coast of South Africa.
In February 1943 she was at anchor in northern Russia when a Luftwaffe 500 kg bomb crashed through her decks and buried itself in coal in her bunkers without exploding.
On 9 June 1944 during the Normandy landings she was scuttled as a Corn Cob block ship for a Gooseberry Harbour.
Ernels Shipping Co of London bought her in 1939, renamed her Argos Hill and placed her under CSM management.
She was damaged in an air raid on Convoy OA 178 on 4 July 1940[17] but survived and remained in service until after the surrender of Germany.
[19][20] By the end of hostilities CSM had lost 13 ships totalling 81,111 tons, with the deaths of 163 officers and men.
[1] CSM renamed her Dover Hill, after the earlier ship that had survived an unexploded bomb and then been scuttled in the Normandy landings.
[8] The Pentridge Hill (II), built in 1941 by Bartram & Sons for Dorset Steamships, became the London Dealer.
[8] Another Dorset Steamships' vessel, Charmouth Hill, which became LOF's London Mariner in 1950, had been completed in Hartlepool in 1943 as the Empire Peak.
[1] Samleven had been built in 1944 and sold in 1947 to a CSM company, Tramp Shipping Development Co, which renamed her Bisham Hill.
[1] She was transferred to LOF in October 1951 and sold in January 1952 to Liberian owners wno renamed her Nausica.
[1] However, during the 1950s LOF became the Kulukundis family's main shipping company and the CSM fleet was reduced in size.
