Help Wanted Naval Vessel 1920

[Chris Grimshaw]

Team

A friend has sent me the attached PPC Cancelled APO Y 1 10 March 1920.

Can anyone read / identify the vessel named please.  My thoughts were "Breman" ?

Chris

[Alan Baker]

Chris

Sorry. I've just come across this in trawling through for suitable covers for the "Festival"

On Ancestry, I have found a William Horace Wolstenholme, 2 Oxford Street, Cheltenham (the address to which the card was sent). He was a member of the Labour Corps, exempt from combatant service on conscientious grounds.

Not sure the word is necessarily the name of a ship

[Frank Schofield]

Chris

The ship could be the ex German liner Bremen, at the end of WW1, she was handed over to the P & O line in 1919 (not listed in their ships list,) sold 1921

Frank Schofield

[Alan Baker]

Here is an extract from the service record of W Horace Wolstenholme, showing he was with the BSF (British Salonica Force?) at the time of writing the card.

Not sure what the "ER" on the record stands for

[Alan Baker]

I have found a reference to an Italian ship, SS Bruenn, which was originally owned by Lloyd Austriaco, an Austrian line taken into Italian ownership at the end of the war as Lloyd Triestino. No information regarding the ship's activity in 1920 though.

The ship was 3870 tons, built in 1908. She was later sold and became the SS Celio. She was sunk by a British mine in 1940.

[Alan Baker]

Picture of ship attached, when named SS Celio

[Nick Colley]

Looks like 'Bruenn' to me , chaps.

chrs
N

[Andrew Brooks]

Hi Chris,
I'm afraid that I do not use the forum as I would become addicted ! However, as I posted a query today I had a quick look at your card. It is definately the SS Bruenn. I think at this time it was at Novossisk ready to take wounded to Constantinople or Salonika. Book 'The Mediterranean Fleet 1919-1929'.
Andrew