SS Orteric was a Bank Line cargo and passenger steamship that was built in Scotland in 1910–11 and sunk by a U-boat in the Mediterranean Sea in 1915.

[1] Russell & Co of Port Glasgow on the Firth of Clyde built Orteric for Andrew Weir & Co. She was launched on 19 December 1910 and completed in January 1911.

[5] In 1911 Orteric took 960 Spanish and 565 Portuguese migrants to Hawaii to work as contract labour in the sugar cane plantations.

[6][7] In December 1915 Orteric was carrying about 10,000 tons of sodium nitrate from Antofagasta, Chile, to Alexandria, Egypt.

At about 1620 hrs on 9 December she was in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Cyrenaica when she sighted the German U-boat SM U-39.

Orteric's master, Captain McGill, attempted evasive manoeuvres, but U-39's commander, KptLt Walther Forstmann, opened fire with his 88mm deck gun.

[8] Orteric raised a white flag in surrender, and her crew began to launch her lifeboats, but U-39 kept firing.