MV ''Tower Grange'' was a cargo ship completed by

William Doxford & Sons William Doxford & Sons Ltd, often referred to simply as Doxford, was a British shipbuilding and marine engineering company. History William Doxford founded the company in 1840. From 1870 it was based in Pallion, Sunderland, on the River Wea ...

Ltd in Sunderland in 1940. She was owned by Tower Steamships Co Ltd and managed by

Counties Ship Management Counties Ship Management Co. Ltd. (CSM) was an ocean-going merchant shipping company based in the United Kingdom. During the Second World War CSM merchant ships made a substantial contribution to supplying the British war effort, at a cost of ...

Co Ltd of London (CSM), both of which were offshoots of the Rethymnis & Kulukundis

shipbroking Shipbroking is a financial service, which forms part of the global shipping industry. Shipbrokers are specialist intermediaries/negotiators (i.e. brokers) between shipowners and charterers who use ships to transport cargo, or between buyers a ...

company. ''Tower Grange'' was a sister ship of , which Doxford built in the same year for another CSM company, Putney Hill Steamships Co Ltd.

Sinking

In 1942 ''Tower Grange'' under Captain William Henry Williamson had sailed from

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

bound for

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

and the UK with a mixed cargo of 8,332 tons including 1,800 tons of

manganese Manganese is a chemical element with the symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese is a transition metal with a multifaceted array of industrial alloy use ...

ore. She called at

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

on 27 October. At 0834 hrs on 17 November the sighted her sailing unescorted in the western Atlantic, but ''Tower Grange'' steered a zigzag course that prevented attack. At 0639 hrs the next morning ''U-154'' fired a spread of three torpedoes but ''Tower Grange'' evaded them. At 0701 hrs ''U-154'' fired a second spread, two of which hit ''Tower Grange'', killing four crew and two DEMS gunners and sinking her about 250 miles northeast of Cayenne,

French Guiana French Guiana ( or ; french: link=no, Guyane ; gcr, label=French Guianese Creole, Lagwiyann ) is an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France on the northern Atlantic coast of South America in the Guianas. ...

. ''Tower Grange's'' survivors abandoned ship but the lifeboats became separated. After six days the Anchor Line cargo steamship rescued Captain Williamson and 29 crew on 23 November and landed them on Trinidad four days later. Two days later the Scottish cargo steamship rescued the First Officer and ten other survivors on 25 November and took them to Trinidad.

Replacement ship

In 1947 Tower Steamships bought the 1944-built

Empire ship An Empire ship is a merchant ship that was given a name beginning with "Empire" in the service of the Government of the United Kingdom during and after World War II. Most were used by the Ministry of War Transport (MoWT), which owned them and co ...

'' Empire Morley'' and renamed her ''Tower Grange''. In 1959 she was transferred to a new Rethymnis & Kulukundis Company, London & Overseas Freighters, who renamed her ''London Trader''. In 1950 LOF sold her to new owners who registered her under the

Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Co ...

nian

flag of convenience Flag of convenience (FOC) is a business practice whereby a ship's owners register a merchant ship in a ship register of a country other than that of the ship's owners, and the ship flies the civil ensign of that country, called the flag state ...

as ''Nico''. She was scrapped in

Etajima , also called , ''Nomijima'', ''Nomi Island'', or is an island in Hiroshima Bay located in southwestern Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. The mess with island name originates from the ancient (and possibly legendary) strait at now town . Geography Th ...

, Japan in 1969.

References

Sources & further reading

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Tower Grange 1940 ships Maritime incidents in November 1942 Ships of Counties Ship Management Ships sunk by German submarines in World War II Ships built on the River Wear World War II shipwrecks in the Atlantic Ocean World War II merchant ships of the United Kingdom