SS Arandora Star SS " Arandora Star " was a British passenger ship of the Blue Star Line . She was built in 1927 as an ocean liner and refrigerated cargo ship , converted in 1929 into a cruise ship and requisitioned as a troop ship in the Second World War . At the end of June 1940 she was assigned the task of transporting German and Italian internees and prisoners of war to Canada . On 2 July 1940 she was sunk in controversial circumstances by a German U - boat with a large loss of life . Construction . She was built by Cammell Laird and Company in Birkenhead for Blue Star Line and launched as " Arandora " in 1927 . As originally built she measured , was long , had a beam of and accommodated 164 first class passengers . She had a service speed of . A major refit in 1929 reduced her cargo space and increased her passenger accommodation to turn her into a cruise ship . Ship history . As " Arandora " she sailed from London to the east coast of South America from 1927 to 1928 . In 1929 she was sent to Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company Limited of Glasgow for refitting . In the refit , her gross tonnage was increased to 14 , 694 and first class accommodation was increased to 354 passengers . A tennis court was also placed abaft the funnels on the boat deck and a swimming pool was installed in the after well deck . Upon completion , she returned to service as a full - time luxury cruise ship . At the time of this refit , she was also renamed " Arandora Star " . The renaming was done to avoid confusion with Royal Mail Ships which typically bore names beginning and ending in ' A ' . As a cruise ship , the " Arandora Star " was based mainly in Southampton , and voyaged to many different destinations . These included Norway , the Northern capitals , the Mediterranean , the West Indies , Panama , Cuba , and Florida . " Arandora Star " also had two unique nicknames because of her colour scheme of a white hull with scarlet ribbon . The nicknames most frequently used were " The Wedding Cake " or the " Chocolate Box " . At the onset of World War II , the " Arandora Star " was requisitioned and refitted as a transport ship . She evacuated troops from Norway and from France in June 1940 before undertaking what was to be her final voyage taking Axis nationals and prisoners of war to Canada . Sinking . On 2 July 1940 , having left Liverpool unescorted the day before , under the command of Edgar Wallace Moulton , she was bound for St John ' s , Newfoundland and Canadian internment camps with nearly 1 , 200 German and Italian internees , including 86 prisoners of war , being transported from Britain . There were also 374 British men , comprising both military guards and the ship ' s crew . The Italians numbered 712 men of all ages , most of whom had been living in Britain when Benito Mussolini declared war on 10 June . At 6 . 58 am off the northwest coast of Ireland , she was struck by a torpedo from the , commanded by U - Boat ace Günther Prien . " U - 47 " fired its single faulty torpedo at " Arandora Star " . All power was lost at once , and 35 minutes after the torpedo impact , " Arandora Star " sank . More than eight hundred lives were lost . At 0705 hours Malin Head radio received the distress call , which it retransmitted to Land ' s End and to Portpatrick . Throughout August bodies were washed up on the Irish shore . The first was 71 - year - old Ernesto Moruzzi , who was found near Burtonport . Four others were found on the same day , 30 July . During August 1940 , 213 bodies were washed up on the Irish coast , of which 35 were from " Arandora Star " and a further 92 unidentified , most probably from the " Arandora Star " . Lifeboats . The modified cruise ship carried 14 lifeboats , of which one was immediately destroyed upon torpedo impact . Another could not be lowered off its winches , and two were damaged during their launch and thus useless . At least four of the remaining lifeboats were launched with a very small number of survivors . One other lifeboat was swamped and sank shortly after being launched . One of the internees on " Arandora Star " was Captain Otto Burfeind , who had been interned after scuttling his ship , the . Burfeind stayed aboard " Arandora Star " organizing her evacuation until she sank and he was lost . Rescue . After a brief scout by a Short Sunderland flying boat that was following their SOS distress signal , the Canadian destroyer arrived to pick up the survivors . There were 586 survivors out of 1 , 216 detainees . The injured were taken to Mearnskirk Hospital . One of the survivors was the athletics coach Franz Stampfl . The British War Cabinet received a report on the disaster on 3 July 1940 , although its impact was over - shadowed to an extent by the Royal Navy attack on Mers - el - Kébir , French Algeria , that sank the French fleet . Citations . " Arandora Star " ' s Master , Edgar Wallace Moulton , was posthumously awarded the Lloyd ' s War Medal for Bravery at Sea , and the Canadian commander Harry DeWolf was cited for his heroism in the rescue operation , as was Captain Burfeind . Wreck and memorials . The wreck ' s position is . In the weeks following the " Arandora Star " s sinking many bodies of those who perished were carried by the sea to various points in Ireland and the Hebrides . In the small graveyard of Termoncarragh , Belmullet , Co . Mayo , Luigi Tapparo , an internee , from Edinburgh , and John Connelly a Lovat Scout , lie buried side by side . Ceazar Camozzi ( 1891 – 1940 ) from Iseo , Italy was washed ashore on the Inishowen peninsula , Co . Donegal and is buried at the Sacred Heart graveyard , Carndonagh . 46 German civilian detainees , who were being shipped from England to Canada for internment when the ship sunk were buried in the Glencree German war cemetery in County Wicklow An unidentified sailor , unrecognisable other than for a tattoo bearing the name " Chrissie " was washed ashore near Newhouse , on the Atlantic coast of Kintyre , Argyll and after official investigation , buried at the local churchyard of Killean . A memorial chapel was built in a cemetery in Bardi , home town of 48 of the dead . Bardi has also named a street " Via Arandora Star " . St Peter ' s Italian Church in Clerkenwell , London , unveiled a memorial plaque in 1960 . Each year a mass is held on the first Sunday in November , close to the anniversary of the unveiling of the plaque . In 2004 the Italian town of Lucca unveiled a monument to 31 local men lost in the sinking , located in the courtyard of the museum of the Paolo Cresci Foundation for the History of Italian Emigration . Numerous bodies were found on the Scottish island of Colonsay . A memorial was unveiled on Colonsay on 2 July 2005 , the 65th anniversary of the tragedy , at the cliff where the body of Giuseppe Delgrosso was found . A bronze memorial plaque was unveiled on 2 July 2008 at the Church of Our Lady and St Nicholas , Liverpool . It was relocated to the Pier Head in front of the old Mersey Docks and Harbour Board building after building work was finished . In 2009 , on the 69th anniversary , the Mayor of Middlesbrough unveiled a memorial in the town hall commemorating the town ' s 13 interned Italians held in cells there prior to deportation and death on the " Arandora Star " s final voyage . On 2 July 2010 , the 70th anniversary of the sinking , a new memorial was unveiled in St David ' s Catholic Metropolitan Cathedral , Cardiff by the Arandora Star Memorial Fund in Wales . On the same day , 2 July 2010 , a memorial cloister garden was opened next to St Andrew ' s Roman Catholic Cathedral , Glasgow . The wreckage of one of the lifeboats remains visible at Knockvologan beach on the Ross of Mull , largely buried but with its iron suspension hooks still above the sand .