Awatea
1936
(Albatros AL-72)
- Type: Passenger
- Displacement: 13,482 tons
- Dimensions: 542-0 x 74-2 x 25-6 ft.
- Machinery: geared steam turbine, twin screws 22,500 SHP = 22 knots
- Passengers: 566 (377 first class, 151 second class, 38 third class)
- Crew: 242
- Builder: Vickers Armstrong Inc, Barrow-in-Furness, England, 1936
- Launched: 25 Feb 1936
- Service: Built for Union Steamship Company of New Zealand (British flag). New Zealand-Australia "Trans-Tasman" service with crossings in 2.5 days. After a refit in 1939, she returned to Trans-Tasman services, but then in Sep 1940 she switched to a Trans-Pacific service from Sydney, via Auckland and Hawaii to Vancouver. Requisitioned as troopship, Sep 1941, with first voyage delivering two battalions of Canadian troops to Hong Kong, arriving 16 Nov 1941; only a few weeks later they would be forced to surrender to the invading Japanese. HMNZS Awatea participated in Operation Torch, bombed by German aircraft 11 Nov 1942, set on fire and abandoned 1 mile north of Bougie breakwater, Algeria, and sank the next day with no loss of life.
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