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Construction of the Holland America
Line’s Statendam began in
1912. With their largest ship so far
being launched after the outbreak of
World War One, work on her completion had
to be halted to save materials for the
war effort. The British Government
purchased Statendam in 1915 to
have her completed as a troopship. This
ship finally entered service in 1917 for
the British Navy under the name
Justicia. Her crew was mainly made
up from survivors of the White Star Lines
Britannic that had sunk in
November 1916. On a voyage that departed
Belfast July 19th 1918 bound for New
York, Justicia’s captain
took a northern route along the Scottish
coast towards the North Atlantic in an
attempt to avoid German submarines.
Before Justicia reached open
seas, she was hit by one torpedo from the
German submarine UB-46.
That attack took place about 23 miles
south of Skerryvore (near the Scottish
Island of Tiree). Although
Justicia took on a list, she
stayed afloat as her watertight
compartments contained the damage. The
captain of UB-46 outwitted
the escorting destroyers at that time by
remaining in the danger area to mount
further attacks. After another two
torpedoes slammed into
Justicia’s hull knocking out
her engines, most of the crew was
evacuated while escorting ships attached
towlines. UB-46 succeeded
in hitting the stricken ship with a
fourth torpedo a few hours later.
Although the escorting destroyers
succeeded in damaging and scaring off
UB-46 after that attack,
the German submarine UB-124
arrived at the scene the following
morning and fired two more torpedoes into
Justicia’s hull. This time
she rolled over and sank with the loss of
16 crew. UB-124 was sunk by
depth charges from the escorting
destroyers Marne, Milbrook and Pigeon.
All but two of the submariners were
picked up and taken prisoner.
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