HMT Transylvania in WWI

[Tony Walker]

In FPHS Newslewtter 201 (way back in autumn 1989), Nick Colley had an item 'The Story of Z47', and illustrated a postcard with a double rim oval censor mark PASSED BY CENSOR / S Breuell / Z47.  The last being written in manuscript, the rest is a handstamp.  I think the name is S Breuell, Nick has it as S Brennel, but that's not the query.  Nicks card is dated by dr cds BAPO 16 JU 16.  Interestingly the sender also has Z47 in his message.

Nick in his piece asks what is the Z47 ?  Is it an Admiralty allocation / designation for HMT Transylvania?  The IWM Nick wrote, said this was the number allocated to Transylvania, and Lt Breuell/Brennel RNR was the Senior Officer.

Now to the query.  I have two postcards with the identical stamped censor mark of S Breuell BUT with E0821 written in, not the EZ4 of Nicks card.  See illustration.  The scanned card is dated 2 NOV 16, and the second card dated 3 OC 16, both London mc with integral RFHMS / NCTBR and with pictures of Alexandria.

Why did the number change?  Nick suggests in a recent email exchange that the ship may have undergone a refit between his card and mine, and was re-allocated a new number when taken back into service, but so far neither he nor I have been able to substantiate this possibility.

Transylvania by the way was sunk on 4 May 1917 whilst taking troops from Marseilles to Alexandria.  She was a requisitioned Cunard liner designed to carry 1379 passengers.  The Admiralty set the number to 200 officers and 2860 men plus crew!  No wonder one of my cards says 'it's a bit crowded on board'.  Escorting Japanese destroyers managed to save many lives, although 29 officers, 373 soldiers and 10 crew died, including Lt Breuell

Tony

[Graham Mark]

Per Hocking "Dictionary of Disasters at Sea" the ships captain was Lt S Brenell RNR.  A 1916 Navy List tells me his name was Samuel.  He was a temp Lt RNR with seniority 28Sep15.
Sorry I cannot tell you anything about the numbers allocated to the ship (by the Admiralty?)
Graham Mark

[Alan Green]

I have a note of HMT Transylvania arriving Malta on 2nd June 1915. This is from Customs Pratique form #1400 held by the Malta National Archives at Rabat which also records HMT Transylvania as E0821.

For completeness, the Pratique form lists Transylvania's departure from Glasgow on 22.5, Devonport on 26.5 and Gibraltar 30.5 with 3027 troops.

I hope this helps, although it obviously gives an earlier date for the use of E0821.

I would be interested to know if these names/numbers are recorded anywhere, in the form of an Admiralty list, or similar.

Alan

[Tony Walker]

Thanks for contributions to date.

Seems HMT Transylvania was assigned the number E0821 probably when requisitioned in May 1915, and still had it on 2 June 1915, but the number had changed to Z47 by 16 June 1916, but back again to E0821 by 3 October 1916 according to the items held by members.

The assigned number therefore temporarily changed to Z47 sometime between June 1915 and June 1916, reverting back to EO821 between 16 June 1916 and 2 October 1916

It is curious a new number was assigned for a limited period only during the war.  Maybe someone knows why this happened, perhaps to other ships, which would offer an explanation

Tony Walker

[Michael Gould]

I have been trying to get a handle on these numbers for some time in connection with my work on naval censorship. I have a suspicion that these shorter numbers may refer to voyages (perhaps convoys) rather than ships as I have seen one censor with two different numbers (one, if I recall correctly, posted in Egypt and one in London. I have surmised these as outward and return voyages). I would welcome any other data. I also would like to try and get some handle on the first letter in the long number as I suspect this refers to the type of ship. As near as I can make out 'E' is a transport but also may include some hospital ships. Michael

[Tony Walker]

Michael

Do you mean a particular route i.e. Glasgow to Gibraltar/ Alexandria say would always have the same number E0821 in this case, and when the number changed to Z47 it was because Transylvania transported troops on a different route - then reverted to her original route later and took the original number back.
Presumably other transports on the same route would not have been allocated the same number.

It seems there is a way to go on this one

[Michael Gould]

Tony. I am not entirely sure but I think the two ran hand-in-hand. The ship number was the long number while the three digit number was the run and yes they do change for the same vessel. So far I think I have only seen these for runs to Egypt and back. I don't know for sure the significance of these three digit numbers but all of the ship allocations seem to be longer. I cannot see the point of changing the ship number (mind you the navy changed pendent numbers I think three times but I think this had more to do with the rapidly increasing number of vessels). Michael