page_title: SS Clan Macarthur
section_title: Final voyage and loss
hierarchical_section_title: SS Clan Macarthur / Final voyage and loss
caption_attribution_description: English: Blank physical map of political Africa, for geo-location purposes. Borders as in July 2011. Français&#160;: Carte physique vierge de l'Afrique politique, destinée à la géolocalisation. Frontières telles qu'en juillet 2011. Lambert azimutal equal-area projection, WGS84 datum Standard meridian: 15°E Standard parallel: 0° Scale: 1:23,420,000 (precision: 5,855 km)
context_page_description: SS Clan Macarthur was a British refrigerated cargo steamship. She was built for Cayzer, Irvine and Company's Clan Line Steamers Ltd as one of its Cameron-class steamships. She was launched in Greenock in 1936 and sunk in the Indian Ocean by enemy action in August 1943.
  This was the third Cayzer, Irvine ship to be named after Clan Arthur. The first was a 3,984 GRT ship built in 1883, sold to an Indian buyer in 1904 and renamed Shah Jehan. The second was a 7,382 GRT steamship built in 1912, transferred in 1920 to Scottish Shire Line and renamed Berwickshire, and sunk by torpedo in 1944.
context_section_description: In June 1943 Clan Macarthur sailed from Glasgow for Port Louis, Mauritius laden with 6,346 tons of cargo including 5,500 tons of military stores, ammunition and mail. She had British officers, Muslim Lascar crew and a Czechoslovak ship's surgeon. She joined Convoy S 31, which left Liverpool on 20 June and reached Freetown, Sierra Leone on 4 July. Clan Macarthur continued to Durban, South Africa, where she joined Convoy DN 55, which left Durban on 6 August and dispersed in the Indian Ocean on 9 August.
  Around noon on 11 August the German submarine U-181 started hunting her. Clan Macarthur was proceeding at full speed on a zigzag course, and it was not until the small hours of 12 August that the submarine managed to hit her. At 0332 hrs two G7a torpedoes hit Clan Macarthur's port side. One blew off her twin propellers and extinguished all her lights. The other hit her further forward, fracturing her foredeck across her beam. Many of her Lascar crew were trapped in their quarters.
  Those of the crew who could reach boat stations were lowering her lifeboats when at 0347 hrs U-181 hit her with a third torpedo. It exploded forward of her bridge, causing her bow to settle in the water and her stern to rise at an acute angle, and at 0355 hrs she sank. As she did so there was a large underwater explosion that swamped several lifeboats and slightly damaged U-181. 52 crew and one DEMS gunner were killed.
  The Free French Naval Forces Bougainville-class aviso Savorgnan de Brazza rescued her Master (John Drayton Matthews), 70 crew and six passengers and landed them at Port Louis.
caption: Approximate position of Clan Macarthur's wreck
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "449961/5000", "Image YResolution": "449961/5000", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2011:07:14 15:33:40", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6319", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1525", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1440"}