SS Loreto (1912) facts for kids

The SS Loreto, first known as Astrée, was a cargo steamship built in England in 1912. It was first owned by a French company. In 1933, Italian owners bought the ship and changed its name to Loreto. In 1942, during World War II, a Royal Navy submarine sank the ship in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Sadly, 130 British Indian Army prisoners of war (POWs) who were on board died.

Ship's History and Design

The ship was built in 1912 by the Sunderland Shipbuilding Company in Sunderland, England. Its first name was Astrée. It was built for a French company called G Lamy et Compagnie, based in Caen, France. Another company, Société Navale Caennaise, helped manage the ship for G Lamy.

In 1933, Italian owners bought the ship and renamed it Loreto. A shipping company called Lauro Lines started managing it. Over a few years, the ship had a couple of different owners, but by 1937, Lauro Lines itself owned the Loreto.

The Loreto had a powerful steam engine with three cylinders, built by the North Eastern Marine Engineering Company. This engine gave the ship 127 horsepower and turned a single propeller. This allowed the ship to travel at a speed of 11 knots (about 20 kilometers per hour).

The Sinking of the Loreto

On October 9, 1942, British code-breakers at the Government Code and Cypher School found a secret message from the enemy. This secret information was called "Ultra." The message said that the Loreto would leave Tripoli at 9:00 a.m. on October 9. It would travel at 7 knots and was expected to arrive in Naples at 7:30 a.m. on October 13. The message also said that the ship was carrying 350 prisoners of war (POWs).

On October 13, 1942, the Loreto was in the Tyrrhenian Sea, about 8 nautical miles (15 kilometers) west of Capo Gallo, near Palermo, Sicily. At 5:32 p.m., a British submarine called HMS Unruffled fired a torpedo and sank the Loreto.

When the ship sank, 130 British Indian Army POWs who were on board died. It's possible that the submarine Unruffled did not receive the secret message about the POWs, or it might not have known for sure that the Loreto was the ship carrying them before it fired.

Related Shipwrecks

• Sebastiano Veniero, an Italian merchant ship sunk by a British submarine in December 1941, which killed at least 300 UK and Dominion PoWs.
• Nino Bixio, an Italian cargo ship sunk by a British Royal Navy submarine in August 1942, which killed 336 UK, Dominion, and Allied PoWs.
• Scillin, an Italian cargo ship sunk by a British Royal Navy submarine in November 1942, which killed 830 Allied PoWs.

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