SS Ranchi The SS " Ranchi was a British passenger and cargo carrying ocean liner . During World War II she served as an armed merchant cruiser HMS " Ranchi . P & O career . The SS " Ranchi " was built for the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company ( P & O ) by Hawthorn Leslie & Co . at Newcastle Upon Tyne , England and was launched on 24 January 1925 . Her gross registered tonnage was 16 , 650 , her length was 547 feet and her beam 71 feet . She was one of the P & O ' R ' class liners from 1925 that had much of their interiors designed by Lord Inchcape ' s daughter Elsie Mackay . Named after Ranchi , the capital city of Jharkhand state in eastern India , she sailed on a regular route between England and Bombay , India . Later she sailed to the Far East . She carried 600 passengers . Second World War . The SS " Ranchi " was requisitioned into the Royal Navy on 27 August 1939 ( at the onset of World War II ) and commissioned on 23 October 1939 as the armed merchant cruiser HMS " Ranchi " ( Pennant F15 ) . As an armed merchant cruiser , her gross registered tonnage was 16 , 738 . Her sister ships SS " Rawalpindi " , SS " Rajputana " and SS " Ranpura " were also converted to armed merchant cruisers . Except for small corvettes , the converted passenger ships like HMS " Ranchi " were the only armed protection for most of the early convoys . With their six - inch guns , they were the only escorts that could engage German surface ships . Very few convoys received the protection of the larger cruiser s or battleship s . From October 1939 until February 1942 she served the East Indies Station ; from March 1942 until January 1943 she was part of the Eastern Fleet ( Indian Ocean ) . She was returned and use as a troopship by the Ministry of War Transport ( MoWT ) on 16 March 1943 . Two months after the end of World War II in the Pacific , in October 1945 the " Ranchi " sailed from Singapore to Southampton carrying amongst others released prisoners of war and civilian internees recently liberated from Japanese camps . Hilda Bates , who had been interned in Batu Lintang camp at Kuching , Borneo , wrote on 23 October 1945 : " We are now speeding towards England aboard the S . S . " Ranchi " , which is packed with troops and other ex P . O . W . s like ourselves . . . In our cabin there are twelve women , - five of who [ m ] are returning home as widows . ' Post - war career . On 18 July 1947 the SS " Ranchi " was returned to her owners , P & O . The " Ranchi " was used as an emigrant ship between June 1948 and 1952 , when she completed 15 voyages from England to Australia . The shipping nominal rolls are held at the Victorian Public Records Office , Melbourne , Australia . Her first post war voyage was from Tilbury Docks on 17 June 1948 , although her journey was delayed into Fremantle as there were rough seas off the coast of Western Australia . During her refit at Southampton and London Docks , her second funnel was removed and she also retained her traditional P & O colours of a black funnel and cream hull . SS " Ranchi " was broken up at Newport , Monmouthshire in 1953 . SS " Ranchi " in popular culture . The P & O liner SS " Canberra " doubled for SS " Ranchi " in the final episode of Tenko , the popular BBC TV series about women civilian internees in the Far East in 1984 . In the " Tintin " book " The Blue Lotus , " there is an ocean liner named SS Ranchi . Cliff Richard , the famous British entertainer musician travelled in this to England .