SS Beatus

History
United Kingdom
Name	Beatus
Owner	Tempus Shipping Co, Ltd[1]
Operator	W.H. Seager & Co Ltd
Port of registry	Cardiff
Builder	Ropner Shipbuilding & Repairing Co Ltd, Stockton-on-Tees[1]
Yard number	548[4]
Launched	23 January 1925
Completed	March 1925[1]
Out of service	18 October 1940[5]
Identification	code letters KSHC (until 1933)[2] Call sign GFVX (1934–40)[3] UK official number: 148281[1]
Fate	Sunk by torpedo, 18 October 1940[5]
General characteristics
Class and type	cargo steamship
Tonnage	4,885 GRT[1] tonnage under deck 4,610[1] 2,992 NRT[1]
Length	390.0 feet (118.9 m)[1] p/p
Beam	55.5 feet (16.9 m)[1]
Draught	24 feet 6+3⁄4 inches (7.49 m)[1]
Depth	26.4 feet (8.0 m)[1]
Installed power	436 NHP[1]
Propulsion	triple-expansion steam engine; single screw[1]
Speed	11 knots (20 km/h)[4]
Crew	37[5]
Sensors and processing systems	wireless direction finding (by 1937)[1]

SS Beatus was a British cargo steamship that was built in 1925, sailed in a number of transatlantic convoys in 1940 and was sunk by a U-boat that October.

Ropner Shipbuilding & Repairing Co Ltd of Stockton-on-Tees, England built Beatus, completing her in February 1925.^[1] She had nine corrugated furnaces with a combined grate area of 190 square feet (18 m²) that heated three 180 lb_f/in² single-ended boilers with a combined heating surface of 7,500 square feet (697 m²).^[1] The boilers fed a three-cylinder triple expansion steam engine that was rated at 436 NHP and drove a single screw.^[1] The engine was built by Blair and Company, also of Stockton.^[1]

Beatus was registered in Cardiff, managed by W.H. Seager & Co Ltd and owned by another of William Seager's companies, Tempus Shipping Co, Ltd.^[1]

By early 1940 Beatus was sailing in convoys.^[6] In February 1940 she joined Convoy SL 20 from Freetown, Sierra Leone to Liverpool with a cargo of wheat.^[6] In May and June 1940 she brought a general cargo across the North Atlantic to the UK via Bermuda, where she joined Convoy BHX 46.^[7] and Halifax, Nova Scotia, where BHX 46 joined Convoy HX 46.^[8] In late July Beatus was carrying a cargo of steel and pit props when she joined another HX convoy, HX 60, from Halifax, NS to Liverpool.^[9] Between ocean voyages, Beatus sailed in a number of North Sea coastal convoys.

Early in October Beatus left Trois-Rivières, Quebec, carrying a cargo of 1,626 tons of steel, 5,874 tons of timber and a deck cargo of crated aircraft bound for Middlesbrough via the Tyne. She went via Sydney, Nova Scotia, where she joined Convoy SC 7 bound for Liverpool.^[10] SC 7 left Sydney on 5 October. At first the convoy had only one escort ship, the Hastings-class sloop HMS Scarborough. A wolfpack of U-boats found the convoy on 16 October and quickly overwhelmed it, sinking many ships over the next few days.

Between 2058 and 2104 hours on 18 October, SC 7 was about 100 miles (160 km) west by south of Barra Head in the Outer Hebrides when U-46, commanded by Oberleutnant zur See Engelbert Endrass, attacked it. Endrass fired four torpedoes: one hit and sank the Swedish freighter SS Convallaria; another hit Beatus.^[5] Frank Holding, Assistant Steward on Beatus, recalled:

"The next thing I heard was this explosion and a sound like breaking glass from down near the engine room. The ship stood still. When I went to the boat deck one of the lifeboats was already in the water, full of water... We knew we were sinking."^[11]

All 37 crew members were rescued by a convoy escort, the Flower-class corvette HMS Bluebell, and were later landed at Gourock.^[5]

• Lloyd's Register, Steamers and Motorships (PDF). London: Lloyd's Register. 1937. Retrieved 9 August 2013.

57°31′N 13°10′W / 57.517°N 13.167°W / 57.517; -13.167