The icebreaker shape of her bow is clearly visible SS Shuntien was a 3,059 GRT[1] coastal[7] passenger and cargo liner of the British-owned The China Navigation Company Ltd (CNC).

[1] She was built to trade along the coast of China, where her relatively shallow draught enabled her to turn in the Hai River at Tianjin and her icebreaker bow equipped her against sea ice in northern waters.

[11] In the Western Desert Campaign in December 1941 Shuntien left Tobruk in Cyrenaica, eastern Libya as a member of Convoy TA 5 bound for Alexandria in Egypt.

[14] At about 19:02 on the evening of 23rd December the Type VIIC German submarine U-559 torpedoed Shuntien,[11] blowing off her stern[6] and killing her captain, four officers and chief steward.

[6] A convoy escort, the Flower-class corvette HMS Salvia, rescued Shuntien's Master, William Shinn, 46 of the ship's officers and men and an unknown number of her prisoners, DEMS gunners and DLI guards.