SS River Clyde

River Clyde at V Beach on the Gallipoli peninsula, showing disembarkation ports cut in her starboard side.
Career
Name:	SS River Clyde[1] SS Angela[1] SS Maruja y Aurora[1]
Namesake:	River Clyde, Scotland
Owner:	Gumersindo Junquera (as Maruja y Aurora)[1]
Port of registry:	(as River Clyde, 1905–14) (as River Clyde, 1915) Gijon (as Maruja y Aurora)[1]
Builder:	Russell & Co, Port Glasgow[1]
Launched:	1905
Completed:	March 1905[1]
Out of service:	1965
Identification:	signal code HCPJ (as Maruja y Aurora)[1]
Fate:	scrapped 1966
General characteristics
Type:	collier
Tonnage:	3,913 GRT[1] tonnage under deck 3,658[1] 2,526 NRT[1]
Length:	344.8 ft (105.1 m)[1]
Beam:	49.8 ft (15.2 m)[1]
Draught:	17.9 ft (5.5 m)[1]
Installed power:	374 NHP[1]
Propulsion:	Kincaid & Co 3-cylinder triple expansion steam engine;[1] single screw

SS River Clyde was a 3,913 GRT British collier built by Russell & Co of Port Glasgow on the Firth of Clyde and completed in March 1905. In the First World War the Admiralty requisitioned her for the Royal Navy and in 1915 she took part in the Gallipoli landings. After the war she was repaired and sold to Spanish owners, with whom she spent a long civilian career trading in the Mediterranean before being scrapped in 1966.

Propulsion

River Clyde had nine corrugated furnaces with a combined grate area of 169 square feet (16 m²) that heated three 180 lb_f/in² single-ended boilers with a combined heating surface of 6,150 square feet (571 m²) to raise steam for her three-cylinder triple expansion engine.^[1] The engine was built by J.G. Kincaid & Co of Greenock and was rated at 374 NHP.^[1]

Gallipoli

Early in 1915 River Clyde was adapted to be a landing ship for the joint French and British invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula.

Openings were cut in her steel hull as sally ports from which troops would emerge onto gangways and then to a bridge of smaller boats from the ship to the beach. Boiler plate and sandbags were mounted on her bow, and behind them a battery of 11 machine guns was installed. The machine gun battery was manned by Royal Naval Air Service men commanded by Josiah Wedgwood. Work began on painting River Clyde‍ '​s hull sandy yellow as camouflage, but this was incomplete by the time of the landing.

By 11 April 1915 River Clyde was in the natural harbour of Moudros^[2] on the Aegean island of Lemnos, where French and British ships were assembling in final preparation for the landings. The troop ship HMT Aragon reached Moudros from the Port of Alexandria in Egypt and transferred the 4th Battalion, the Worcestershire Regiment and the 2nd Battalion, the Hampshire Regiment to River Clyde.^[2] Both Battalions were units of the 88th Brigade, which was part of the 29th Division.

On 25 April 1915 River Clyde sailed to take part in the landing at Cape Helles. She was commanded by Commander Edward Unwin, formerly of the Dryad-class torpedo gunboat HMS Hussar. She was carrying 2,000 soldiers; mostly from 86th Brigade units of the 29th Division: the 1st Battalion of the Royal Munster Fusiliers and men from the 1st Battalion, the Royal Dublin Fusiliers.^[3]

Unwin beached River Clyde at V Beach beneath the Sedd el Bahr castle, on the tip of the Gallipoli peninsula. The plan failed and the River Clyde, beached under the guns of the Turkish defenders, became a death trap. Three attempts to land made by companies of Munsters, Royal Dublins and Hampshires all ended in costly failure. Further landing attempts were abandoned and the surviving soldiers waited until nightfall before trying again.

Members of River Clyde‍ '​s crew maintained the bridge from the ship to the beach and recovered the wounded. For their bravery six of them were decorated with Victoria Crosses: Commander Unwin (aged 51), Midshipmen George Drewry (20) and Wilfred Malleson (18), Able Seaman William Williams (34) and Seaman George Samson (26), plus Sub-Lieutenant Arthur Tisdall (24) of the Royal Naval Division (RND). Williams was killed in the landing and was decorated posthumously. Samson was severely wounded the next day but survived. On his return to Scotland he was handed a white feather while wearing civilian clothes. Tisdall was killed on 6 May when the 6th (Hood) Battalion RND advanced along Kanlı Dere in the Second Battle of Krithia. Drewry, Samson and Williams had come with Unwin from HMS Hussar. Malleson, who died in 1975, served on the Duncan-class battleship HMS Cornwallis.

Soldiers of the Australian 2nd Infantry Brigade disembarking at V Beach on 6 May 1915, for the Second Battle of Krithia. River Clyde is beached and serving as a quay. The light coloured patch on her starboard bow is part of her unfinished yellow camouflage.

After the Helles beach-head was established, V Beach became the base for the French contingent and the River Clyde remained beached as a quay and breakwater. Her condensers provided fresh water and her holds became a field dressing station. She remained a constant target for Turkish gunners ashore.

Return to civilian service

In 1919, River Clyde was refloated, repaired at Malta and sold to civilian Spanish owners. They operated her as a tramp steamer in the Mediterranean, renaming her first Angela and then Maruja y Aurora. In 1965 there was an attempt to buy and preserve River Clyde but in 1966 her owners sold her for scrap and she was broken up at Avilés, Spain.

References

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