The Northumberland Shipbuilding Company in Howdon on the River Tyne built Dover Hill[1] to the First World War Shipping Controller's standard design[2] F1.

One of the ships accused was Dover Hill, which the statement claimed had carried a cargo of 200 lorries and 400 tons of matériel from a USSR Black Sea port to Alicante, passing through the Bosphorus on 20 April.

[8] In reality every ship serving a Republican port had to carry a Non-Intervention Officer representing the Non-Intervention Committee, and the Royal Navy detained any ship suspected of carrying matériel and inspected her cargo, in many cases by having it all unloaded for inspection at Gibraltar or Malta.

Dover Hill's first voyage in the Second World War was in September 1939 to Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Rosario and Montevideo.

She made calls in Port Sudan, Aden, Dar-es-Salaam, Beira, Durban, Cape Town, Lobito and Freetown, and reached Liverpool in April 1942.

[11] Six merchant ships were damaged and diverted to Iceland[11] along with the cruiser Sheffield[15] and the armed trawler HMT Lord Middleton.

[citation needed] A Royal Navy flotilla led by the cruiser Scylla relieved the original escorts off Iceland.

[12] However, during the storm the aircraft carrier Dasher was damaged and returned to the Firth of Clyde, leaving JW 53 without air cover.

[11] Despite air attacks and adverse weather, JW 53 had lost no merchant ships en route.

[11] Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters armed with bomb racks repeatedly made low-level attacks on the ships at anchor, during which Dover Hill was damaged and some of her gunners wounded.

[11] The minesweeper HMS Jason anchored astern of Dover Hill, ready to rescue any survivors if the bomb exploded.

[11] The Luftwaffe made further air raids, and bombs exploding in the sea around the ship repeatedly caused coal to fall back into the hole that the volunteers were digging.

After a few turns it stuck, so the bomb disposal man tapped it with a punch and a small hammer to move it.

Dover Hill's radio officer, David Craig, recalls "every time he hit it I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck standing against my duffle coat hood".

[11] On 17 May Dover Hill and three other ships left the Kola Inlet and went via the White Sea to Economia on the Northern Dvina River.

[10] She crossed the English Channel and on 9 June 1944[11] was scuttled off Ouistreham on the Normandy coast as a Corn Cob block ship to protect the Gooseberry 5 Harbour for the Sword landing area.

In 1961 she was sold again to Riza ve Aslan Sadikoglu Ortaklari Komandit Sirketi who renamed her Umran and registered her in Istanbul.