Empire ship
Most were used by the Ministry of War Transport (MoWT), which owned them and contracted their operation to various shipping companies of the British Merchant Navy.
New Empire ships were built for the MoWT or obtained from the United States to increase Britain's shipping capacity and offset losses to German U-boats, commerce raiders, bombing and other enemy actions in the tonnage war Germany was waging against Britain's sea transport around the globe.
New Empire ship construction represented an enormous undertaking that included classes of freighters, tankers, aircraft carriers, fast cargo liners, tank landing ships, deep-sea salvage and rescue tugs and several other categories.
Approximately 4,000 ships on the British register were lost between 1939 and 1945, a considerable number being sunk during the Battle of the Atlantic.
Accommodation was good because the five berth cabin for the DEMS gunners was available and several vessels were modified after the war to make better use of all the spaces.
This method of replenishment was in operation until D-Day plus forty when it became possible to use the captured channel ports.
It was then decided to bring all the class into the confines of the gooseberry shelters until a Royal Navy Constructor could carry out stability tests.
Others carried out sterling service, Chant 23 lying off Sword Beach had been hit by an enemy shell in her engine room and disabled but still continued to fuel anything that came alongside.
After discharging her precious cargo to army bowsers she was dragged back to her natural element and towed home, the author Captain E. E. Sigart made the observation that Chant 26 was the only British merchantman to fly proudly the Red Ensign and discharge her cargo, literally in a foreign field.
Finally some of the Chants were used as accommodation ships as there uses diminished and after the landings had been completed most returned to the UK and after the war were sold on to commercial operators.
The remaining survivors served various ship owners until their eventual scrapping mostly in the fifties and sixties.
[4] The 'Norwegian' type were slightly larger and were constructed only by two builders, Sir James Laing & Sons, at Sunderland (who had built the prototype) and by Furness Shipbuilding Co, Ltd.
The merchant air carriers were adapted standard grain ships or oil tankers.
Another was laid down intending to be given the prefix but was acquired by the Royal Netherlands Government and completed as Modjokerto.
These ships were able to carry smaller vessels, such as tugs and landing craft, to support combat operations around the world.
[8] A number of Salvage and Rescue Tugs were built during the war and most were owned by the MoWT and operated by Merchant Shipping companies (notably the United Towing Co.).
These vessels played an important role as crane ships in unloading the Arctic convoys at the Russian ports.
[10] Ten ships were built in the later and larger (3,500 gross tons) Empire Malta class, which had the boiler aft and the cargo handling grouped around the fore- and main-mast.
The tank landing ships (LST Mark 3) had a speed of eleven knots and were 4,820 tons when loaded.
Seven were charted from the Ministry of War Transport as ferries and given the "Empire" prefix, operating between Tilbury and Hamburg from September 1946 and also between Preston and Larne from May 1948.
Twelve of the landing craft were recalled to service and given "Empire" names in 1956 during the Suez Crisis and used as military transport ferries in Malta, Aden and Singapore.
In June 1944 ninety-seven Empire merchant ships were involved in the cross-channel convoys that carried troops and supplies ready for the Normandy invasion.
These were prefabricated ports, constructed at Southampton, Gosport, Portsmouth, Tilbury Docks, and even as far north as Birkenhead and Hartlepool.
Two hundred tugs then took three months to tow the components of the harbours from where they were constructed to assembly areas on the South Coast.
Before D-Day, sixty old merchant ships and four old warships were selected as blockships, to be scuttled in a line to give protection to the small craft.
In doing this they sustained a considerably greater casualty rate than almost every branch of the armed services and suffered great hardship.
[14] Empire ships were also transferred to the representatives of governments of countries that had been invaded by Germany, in recognition of the losses suffered by the fleets of Britain's allies.
At least three Empire ships survive today: The tug Laut Sawu (ex-Empire Humphrey) was still in active service in Indonesia in 2004.
The 7,055 GRT former Empire Trumpet, latterly Khoula F, has been beached on the coast of Kish Island on the Persian Gulf since 1966.
The 7,355 GRT former Blue Star Line ship Empire Strength, latterly E Evangelia, has been beached at Costinești, Romania, since 1968.
