SNADGER SMITH

Chapter 3

The Ascanius
1.
It was 1909 and on a slip dock in Belfast Harbour a large steel gantry surrounded the partially completed frame of a vessel under construction. A floating crane on a pontoon barge, a fairy new addition to ship building, was delivering heavy metal panels to waiting workers positioned strategically on the dock. As the huge sections arrived the men were hand hammering large rivets with sledge hammers connecting the hull pieces together. The blows echoed in the harbour on what was a still and frigid foggy morning.

The men were putting together a huge steel jigsaw puzzle, but this ship wasn't the largest being constructed in the harbour at that time. For many years Belfast had been a thriving nursery for new vessels and several ship building companies were operating in the area. The harbour had been the birthplace of many a fine sea craft since the first vessel, the Eagles Wing, was built for the Presbyterian Clergy there in 1663. The harbour was seen as the greatest ship building yards in the world by the mid 1800's.

Harland & Wolff had been building ships at Belfast since the 1850s, but in 1908 they began construction of a new breed of vessels. State of the art steamship cruise liners for the White Star Line. The RMS Olympic would be the first in a trio of Olympic-Class vessels that included the Titanic and the Britannic, but the Olympic's two sister ships would become better known for their failures than their triumphs.

The Olympic, the company's lead ship, was launched in 1911 and she completed twenty four years of service. That included troop carrying duties in the Great War where she earned her nickname 'Old Reliable'. The RMS Titanic was launched in 1912 and, as we know, tragically sunk on her maiden voyage. The RMS Britannic was the last ship in the Olympic-Class fleet, it was launched in 1914, but sank when she struck a German naval mine off the coast of Greece in 1916.

Workman, Clark & Company weren't constructing ships on the scale of Harland & Wolff, nor were they building a cruise ship in 1909. The ship they had under construction in their slip docks was a refrigerated cargo/passenger ship that would later be named the Ascanius. The ship was no where near the size of the White Star Line's leviathans that had displacements of around 52000 tonnes, as the Ascanius was a mere 10000 tons. She had one funnel compared to the Titanic's four, although one of the Titanic's funnels was purely for show. Once completed the Ascanius did have the distinctive dark black hull with white trimming at the top rail and deck that made the Olympic-Class ships so recognisable. It was also made of the same brittle steel that would help bring down the Titanic in the North Atlantic Ocean on her maiden voyage.  Comparisons between the two ships ended about there, as it was like comparing a thoroughbred horse to a donkey. That's probably a bit unfair on the Ascanius as she wasn't built as a luxury cruise liner. In any case by the time construction was completed in 1910 she was brand new and the pride of her owners, the Straits Steamship Company of Liverpool. The Ascanius' working life had just begun!

The ship initially plied her trade in the Irish, Celtic and North Seas as well as the English Channel, but was never too far from home at Liverpool. In 1914, with only three years of private enterprise under her masts, she was about to embark on new and dangerous voyages. The United Kingdom had declared war on Germany on the 4th of August and Australia followed the mother country into the conflict. Ships can't be built overnight so many working class vessels were requisitioned by the Commonwealth for service in the war. Just as the first British and Australian troops enlisted to fight for their King and country, so too the Ascanius was signed up for war.
Her Commonwealth War name became - HMAT A11 ASCANIUS!

After some converting, to make the her suitable for troop transport, it wasn't long before the coal fired steamship was put to work.  She travelled to Australia and joined the first convoy carrying Australian troops to Egypt in November, 1914. Those ANZACS were to be in the first wave of troops to grace the beaches and steep hills of the Gallipoli Peninsular against the Turks in early 1915. Other ships like the A3 Orvieto and the A55 Kyarra were also in that first convoy. The SS Orvieto was formerly part of the Orient Line of cruise ships and Major General Bridges, the Commander of the AIF, was aboard that vessel for the voyage. Perhaps his rank had something to do with the quality of his transport to the Middle East? The SS Kyarra was initially used as a hospital ship and so was painted white with large red crosses on either side. She was later converted into a troop carrier too and was unlucky enough to come within range of a German U-Boat's torpedo in the English Channel in 1918 and was sunk.