page_title: SS Yoma
section_title: Convoy GTX 2 and loss
hierarchical_section_title: SS Yoma / Convoy GTX 2 and loss
caption_attribution_description: Australian Bathurst class minesweeping sloop HMAS Lismore during 1942.
context_page_description: SS Yoma was a British passenger liner that served as a troop ship in the Second World War. She was built in Scotland in 1928, and from then until 1940 Yoma ran a regular route between Glasgow in Scotland and Rangoon in Burma via Liverpool, Palma, Marseille and Egypt. She became a troop ship in 1941 and was sunk with great loss of life in the Mediterranean in 1943.
  Yoma was a ship of the Henderson Line of Glasgow. She was managed by P Henderson & Company and initially owned jointly by two other P Henderson companies: British and Burmese Steam Navigation Company Ltd and Burmah Steam Ship Company Ltd. From 1934 the British and Burmese SN Co Ltd was Yoma's sole owner.
  Yoma was one of a family of similarly-sized liners built for Henderson's by William Denny and Brothers of Dumbarton on the River Clyde. These were Amarapoora, Pegu, Kemmendine and Sagaing – completed in 1920, '21, '24 and '25 respectively. Each was about 8,000 gross register tons and carried cargo as well as passengers.
context_section_description: On 13 May Axis forces in Tunisia surrendered, ending the North African Campaign and opening the way for the Allied Invasion of Sicily. Yoma was transferred to the Mediterranean, and on 17 May she sailed with Convoy KMX 14X from Gibraltar to Alexandria.
  On 8 June she again left Gibraltar for Alexandria, this time in Convoy GTX 2. She called at Sfax in Tunisia and Tripoli in Libya, leaving the latter on 16 June. She left Tripoli carrying 134 officers and 994 other ranks of the British Army and 22 officers and 643 ratings of the Free French Naval Forces. Many of the British troops were Royal Engineers, including 994 Dock Operating Company and 1010 Dock Operating Company, who were going to Alexandria to be kitted out and were then to operate port facilities for the Sicilian campaign.
  On the morning of 17 June the convoy was northwest of the port of Derna, Libya. At 0733 hours many of the men were below decks having breakfast when German submarine U-81 commanded by Oberleutnant zur See Johann-Otto Krieg fired two torpedoes. Accounts differ as to what followed. U-boat historian Guðmundur Helgason states that one torpedo hit Yoma, but Second World War blogger Martin Cherrett states that both of them hit her, one in her engine room and the other in her number 4 hold, sinking her within five minutes. Either way, the Chief Officer, A Olding, reported that she sank rapidly. Olding stated that the explosion destroyed the after engine room bulkhead, rapidly flooding the engine room, boiler room and no. 5 hold and blowing the hatches of nos. 3 and 4 holds. As men scrambled for safety, the ladders on No. 2 mess deck collapsed, trapping many men below decks.
  Yoma settled rapidly by her stern and was shrouded by escaping steam and clouds of coal dust. Her Master, George Patterson ordered "abandon ship" and Chief Officer Olding was among those who made for their boat stations. Olding and his lifeboat crew succeeded in releasing their boat so that it floated as the ship went down. The ship sank stern first, and as she did her bow rose more steeply. Olding described:
  "...by this time the Yoma was well down by the stern and the next thing I knew she sank under my feet and I found myself in the water... as the boat rose I saw a lot of men on the foc’sle head: they would not jump into the water,... as the bow lifted a number of them lost their footing and fell onto the bridge, many others being dragged under by the ship."
  Two of the Royal Engineers having breakfast were Herbert Cullum from County Durham and his friend George Monk. Monk told the Cullum family:
  "Bert was at hand's reach from me, when it happened. We all got thrown across seats and on the floor and after I managed to regain my feet, which was very difficult, I looked around for Bert. He was nowhere to be seen... after great difficulty and luck I found myself in the water, and for the one and three quarter hours in which I was drifting around my eyes were constantly looking for Bert, but could not see him."
  484 people were killed: Captain Patterson, 29 crew members, three DEMS gunners and 451 military personnel. Because of the danger from enemy submarines Convoy GTX 2 continued on its way. However, a rescue operation was undertaken by the Royal Australian Navy Bathurst-class corvettes HMAS Lismore and HMAS Gawler, Royal Navy coastal motor minesweepers HMS MMS-102 and HMS MMS-105 and a British-registered merchant ship: the 7,133 GRT Park ship Fort Maurepas. Between them the five vessels rescued 130 crew members, five DEMS gunners and 1,342 military personnel.
caption: HMAS Lismore, one of the Royal Australian Navy corvettes that rescued survivors
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