page_title: SS Ben-my-Chree (1927)
section_title: War service
hierarchical_section_title: SS Ben-my-Chree (1927) / War service
caption_attribution_description: English: Ben-my-Chree pictured departing Dover.
context_page_description: TSS Ben-my-Chree (IV) No. 145304 – the fourth vessel in the company's history to be so named – was a passenger ferry operated by the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company between 1927 and 1965.
  Ben-my-Chree was built in 1927 at the Cammell Laird shipyard, Birkenhead. She was the first steamer built after World War I for the Steam Packet Co.
  Upon the ordering of the vessel by the Steam Packet, a contracted cost of £185,000 was agreed. However, early construction was then held up by the long coal strike of 1926. Steel had to be purchased from Continental sources, and her keel was not laid until November of that year.
context_section_description: Painted in naval grey in September 1939, the Ben-my-Chree was requisitioned and served as a personnel ship until she was released from service in May 1946.
  Under the command of her Master Captain G. Woods, "The Ben" served alongside seven of her Steam Packet sisters during Operation Dynamo. She made three trips to Dunkirk, and rescued a total of 4,095 troops from the stricken port. Her only mishap was when she sustained damage after she and another ship collided soon after leaving Folkestone for Dunkirk, and this effectively finished her part in the Dunkirk Evacuation.
  Later she was engaged on trooping and transport duties between Iceland, the Faroes and Britain, plying from Greenock and Invergordon, usually in the company of her sister Lady of Mann, until the beginning of 1944. During this stage of her service, she gained a reputation as a very fine sea boat, and was sometimes able to keep her station while naval vessels around her were falling back in heavy weather.
  "The Ben" made one trip from Skale Fjord in the Faroes to Iceland in May 1941, the week that the British battlecruiser HMS Hood was sunk in the area by the German battleship Bismarck.
  Most of her war service had seen her based in Scottish ports which continued until January 1944, when she was moved to North Shields. Ben-my-Chree was then converted to a Landing Ship Infantry (Hand Hoisting) vessel with a carrying capacity of six landing craft assault, and after her conversion she made passage to the Channel to begin her preparations for D-Day.
  On D-Day, 6 June 1944, as headquarters ship of the Senior Officer of the 514th Assault Flotilla, Ben-my-Chree and her landing craft saw action off Omaha Beach, landing American troops of the Ranger Assault Group at Pointe du Hoc.
  She then continued as a transport, until she was released for reconditioning in May 1946, and returned to Birkenhead in a very poor condition.
caption: Ben-my-Chree pictured at Dover, 18 June 1944
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