SS ''Empire Rest'' was a convoy rescue ship built for the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, originally

laid down Laying the keel or laying down is the formal recognition of the start of a ship's construction. It is often marked with a ceremony attended by dignitaries from the shipbuilding company and the ultimate owners of the ship. Keel laying is one o ...

as the ''Rayleigh Castle''. Post-war she served as a transport ship until 1948, was sold in 1951, and

scrapped Scrap consists of recyclable materials, usually metals, left over from product manufacturing and consumption, such as parts of vehicles, building supplies, and surplus materials. Unlike waste, scrap has monetary value, especially recovered me ...

in 1952.

Design and description

The Castle-class corvette was a stretched version of the preceding Flower class, enlarged to improve

seakeeping Seakeeping ability or seaworthiness is a measure of how well-suited a watercraft is to conditions when underway. A ship or boat which has good seakeeping ability is said to be very seaworthy and is able to operate effectively even in high sea stat ...

and to accommodate modern weapons. The convoy rescue conversions had an

overall length The overall length (OAL) of an ammunition cartridge is a measurement from the base of the brass shell casing to the tip of the bullet, seated into the brass casing. Cartridge overall length, or "COL", is important to safe functioning of reloads in ...

of , a

beam Beam may refer to: Streams of particles or energy *Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy **Laser beam *Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles **Charged particle beam, a spatially localized grou ...

of and a draught of . They had a tonnage of . The ships were powered by a pair of triple-expansion steam engines, each driving one

propeller shaft A drive shaft, driveshaft, driving shaft, tailshaft (Australian English), propeller shaft (prop shaft), or Cardan shaft (after Girolamo Cardano) is a component for transmitting mechanical power and torque and rotation, usually used to connect ...

using steam provided by two

Admiralty three-drum boiler Three-drum boilers are a class of water-tube boiler used to generate steam, typically to power ships. They are compact and of high evaporative power, factors that encourage this use. Other boiler designs may be more efficient, although bulkier, an ...

s. The engines developed a total of and gave a maximum speed of . The convoy rescue ships were given an armament of a single 12-pounder () anti-aircraft (AA) guns and five Oerlikon AA guns on single mounts.

Construction and career

The ship was ordered from

Ferguson Brothers (Port Glasgow) Ltd. Ferguson Marine (Port Glasgow) Limited is a shipbuilding company whose yard, located in Port Glasgow on the Firth of Clyde in Scotland, was established in 1903. It is the last remaining shipbuilder on the lower Clyde and is currently the only ...

Port Glasgow Port Glasgow ( gd, Port Ghlaschu, ) is the second-largest town in the Inverclyde council area of Scotland. The population according to the 1991 census for Port Glasgow was 19,426 persons and in the 2001 census was 16,617 persons. The most recen ...

on 9 December 1942 as a Castle-class corvette. She was laid down in 1943 and launched on 19 June 1944 as ''Rayleigh Castle'' (K695), but further work was then cancelled, and she was completed as a convoy rescue ship on 26 October 1944. Under the ownership of the

Ministry of War Transport The Ministry of War Transport (MoWT) was a department of the British Government formed early in the Second World War to control transportation policy and resources. It was formed by merging the Ministry of Shipping and the Ministry of Transport ...

, and managed by the Ellerman City Line, she sailed on eleven convoys between November 1944 and June 1945, but made no rescues. In November 1945 she sailed to

Kiel Kiel () is the capital and most populous city in the northern Germany, German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 246,243 (2021). Kiel lies approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the southeast of the J ...

to repatriate Royal Navy personnel, and was also employed as an transport ship in the Mediterranean in 1947, taking illegal Jewish immigrants from

Haifa Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...

to internment camps on Cyprus in October that year. In July 1948 she was laid up at Falmouth, Cornwall, and offered for sale in October 1949. She was eventually bought by Lloyds Albert Yard & Motor Boat Packet Services Ltd. in October 1951. She arrived at

Thos. W. Ward Thos. W. Ward Ltd was a Sheffield, Yorkshire, steel, engineering and cement business, which began as coal and coke merchants. It expanded into recycling metal for Sheffield's steel industry, and then the supply and manufacture of machinery. I ...

Briton Ferry Briton Ferry ( cy, Llansawel) is a town and community in the county borough of Neath Port Talbot, Wales. The Welsh name may indicate that the church, ''llan'', is protected from the wind, ''awel''. Alternatively, ''Sawel'' may be a derivative ...

, Wales, for scrapping on 6 June 1952.

Convoys

''Empire Rest'' sailed on the following convoys: * OS-95 km/KMS-69G – River Clyde to Gibraltar (November 1944) * MKS-68G/SL-177MK – Gibraltar to Liverpool (November 1944) * OS-100 km – Liverpool to Gibraltar (December 1944) * MKS-72G – Gibraltar to Liverpool (December 1944) * OS-104 km – Liverpool to Gibraltar (January 1945) * MKS-76G – Gibraltar to Clyde (January 1945) * ON-283 – Southend to New York City (February 1945) * HX-341 – NYC to Liverpool (March 1945) * ON-294 – Southend to NYC (April 1945) * HX-352 – NYC to Liverpool (May 1945) * ON-304 – Southend to NYC (June 1945)

References

Bibliography

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Empire Rest 1944 ships Ships built on the River Clyde Castle-class corvettes Empire ships

Design and description

Construction and career

Convoys

See also

References

Bibliography