The SS ''Dresden'' was a British passenger ship which operated, as such, from 1897 to 1915. She is known as the place of the 1913 disappearance of German engineer Rudolf Diesel, inventor of the Diesel engine. The ship was built in 1897 by the Earle Company at Hull for the

Great Eastern Railway The Great Eastern Railway (GER) was a pre-grouping British railway company, whose main line linked London Liverpool Street to Norwich and which had other lines through East Anglia. The company was grouped into the London and North Eastern R ...

. She operated on the North Sea route between

Harwich Harwich is a town in Essex, England, and one of the Haven ports on the North Sea coast. It is in the Tendring district. Nearby places include Felixstowe to the north-east, Ipswich to the north-west, Colchester to the south-west and Clacton-on- ...

and the Hook of Holland. She was renamed HMS ''Louvain'' in 1915 and was used by the Royal Navy in World War I. until her loss in 1918.

Diesel's Disappearance

On 29 September 1913 Rudolf Diesel, German engineer who invented the Diesel engine, boarded the ''Dresden'' at

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

, Belgium on his way to a meeting in London. He retired to his cabin about 22:00 with a request to be called at 06:15 in the morning, but he was not seen alive again. Later a Dutch ship found a body floating in the sea and from the items and clothes recovered the remains were identified as Diesel's.

Royal Navy

In 1915 ''Dresden'' was taken over by the admiralty as an armed boarding steamer and renamed HMS ''Louvain''. On 21 January 1918, she was torpedoed by the Imperial German Navy

submarine A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...

in the Aegean Sea with the loss of seven officers and 217 men. There were only 16 survivors. The dead included 70

Maltese Maltese may refer to: * Someone or something of, from, or related to Malta * Maltese alphabet * Maltese cuisine * Maltese culture * Maltese language, the Semitic language spoken by Maltese people * Maltese people, people from Malta or of Malte ...

naval ratings, which made the loss of the ship Malta's largest incident of loss of life during the war. A Naval and Dockyard Families Help Society was set up to help the families of the Maltese victims of the sinking.

References

External links

*
Postcard of ''Dresden''IWM Interview with survivor Charles Black
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dresden 1896 ships Ships built on the Humber Steamships of the United Kingdom Merchant ships of the United Kingdom Ships of the Great Eastern Railway World War I merchant ships of the United Kingdom World War I naval ships of the United Kingdom Ships sunk by German submarines in World War I Maritime incidents in 1918 World War I shipwrecks in the Aegean Sea Armed boarding steamers of the Royal Navy