SS Flandre (1913)

SS Flandre was a French transatlantic ocean liner of the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique. (CGT). She was launched in 1913 and sunk in 1940. Her peacetime route was between France and ports in the Caribbean. During and after the First World War, Flandre was a hospital ship and then a troop ship. In the Second World War she was a troop ship again. German forces captured her when France capitulated in 1940, but she was sunk less than three months later when she struck a mine. In June 1939 Flandre took to the Caribbean 310 Jews who had fled Nazi Germany, German-occupied Austria and occupied Czechoslovakia. Both Cuba and Mexico refused admission to 104 of them, who were then sent back to France. Many were later murdered in the Shoah. In 1911 Chantiers de l'Atlantique in Saint-Nazaire completed , CGT's first ship to be propelled by a combination of reciprocating steam engines and low-pressure steam turbines. Her success led CGT to order further ships with "combination machinery": Flandre from Chantiers de l'Atlantique and Lafayette from Chantiers et Ateliers de Provence. Flandre was launched on 13 October 1913 and completed in 1914. Lafayette was launched in 1914 and completed in 1915. Like Rochambeau, Flandre had four screws: two driven by reciprocating steam engines, two driven by low-pressure steam turbines, and exhaust steam from the reciprocating engines powered the turbines. But whereas Rochambeau had triple-expansion engines, Flandre had four-cylinder compound engines. Between them, the two sets of engines gave Flandre a top speed of and a service speed of . Flandre was significantly smaller than Rochambeau and Lafayette. In 1914 her dimensions were registered as length, beam and depth. As built, her tonnages were and . By 1917 her registered dimensions had been revised to , and . CGT registered Flandre in St-Nazaire. Her code letters were JGNK, and by 1918 her wireless telegraph call sign was FGF. On 21 May 1914 Flandre left France on her maiden voyage, which was to Vera Cruz in Mexico.