SS Cyclops was a British cargo steamship of Alfred Holt and Company (Blue Funnel Line).

A German submarine sank her in January 1942 off the coast of Nova Scotia, killing 87 of the men aboard her.

This was the first attack of the Kriegsmarine's Unternehmen Paukenschlag ("Operation Drumbeat") to destroy Allied merchant shipping in the Western Atlantic.

The first was a two-masted sail and steamship built in 1880, transferred in 1894 to Alfred Holt's Dutch joint venture Nederlandsche Stoomvaart Maatschappij Oceaan and sold in 1902 to Uruguayan buyers who renamed her Iberia.

[2] D&W Henderson & Co of Glasgow built Cyclops in 1906 for Ocean Steam Ship Co, Alfred Holt's ship-owning company.

[5] On 11 February 1917 the German Type UB III submarine SM U-60 unsuccessfully chased Cyclops southwest of Ireland.

On 11 April that year west of the Isles of Scilly Cyclops evaded a torpedo fired by another Type UB III submarine, SM U-55.

She left on 23 October, called at Penang in Malaya and then crossed the Indian Ocean via Colombo in Ceylon to Suez.

She reached Southampton on New Year's Day 1940 and then made two round trips across the English Channel to Le Havre and back.

Cyclops' complement, including her Master, Leslie Webber Kersley, was 96 officers and men plus seven DEMS gunners.

[1] After nightfall 11 January 1942 about 125 nautical miles (232 km) southeast of Cape Sable, Nova Scotia the German Type IXB submarine U-123 fired a G7a torpedo at Cyclops at close range, hitting her starboard side abreast of her Nos.

[14] As Cyclops' lifeboats were launched and got clear, Kersley and some of his officers remained aboard to ensure that everyone who was still alive had left.

[14] The Royal Canadian Navy Bangor-class minesweeper HMCS Red Deer rescued Captain Kersley, 55 crew, six DEMS gunners and 33 passengers and landed them at Halifax.

[14] One of Cyclops' survivors, Midshipman Desmond Stewart, was awarded Lloyd's War Medal for Bravery at Sea.

In 1948 Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company of Greenock, Renfrewshire completed a new Cyclops that was a 7,632 GRT motor ship.

[16] The reason for renaming the 1948 ship was to release the Cyclops name for a new 32,576 GRT product carrier that Van der Giessen de Noord of Krimpen aan den IJssel built for Alfred Holt in 1975.