Quiz #78
Royal Mail Lines liner Asturias converted to armed merchant cruiser for Royal Navy in 1939. Torpedoed by the Italian submarine Ammiraglio Cagni, July 25, 1943 in the South Atlantic. Towed to Freetown by tug Zwarte Zee and beached there. Declared a total loss and abandoned by Royal Mail. In 1945 she was taken over by the British government and towed to Gibraltar again by the Zwarte Zee for temporary repairs and then towed to Belfast to be rebuilt as troopship, and then as an emigrant ship to Australia.
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