BOOTH LINE STEAMER ‘HILARY’ OF 1931

Built by Cammell Laird & Company Limited at Birkenhead .

Official Number: 162350    Signal Letters:  G Q V M

Gross Tonnage: 7,420,  Nett: 4,286.    Length: 424·2ft,  Breadth: 56·2ft.

Owned by the Booth Steamship Company Limited, registered at Liverpool

Single screw steamer, triple-expansion engines.  Speed: 14 knots.

            Ordering the passenger-cargo liner Hilary at the height of the depression was a mark of considerable faith by the Booth Line, and the placing of the order locally on Merseyside was much appreciated.

The Hilary was launched on 17^th April 1931 and was completed by August. She sailed on her maiden voyage from Liverpool to Para and Manaus on 14^th August. The new Hilary could be easily recognised  by her distinctive three-note triple-chime steam whistle.

First-class single-berth rooms were on the promenade deck, double and three-berth on the upper deck, and there were four de-luxe rooms with private bath and toilet. The third-class passengers were accommodated in two and four-berth cabins on the main deck, in compliance with Portuguese emigrant ship requirements.

            The crew and stewards were quartered forward on the main and upper decks, while the captain and officers were in a house at the fore end of the boat deck.

            A sister ship to the Hilary was built in 1935 – the Anselm – slightly smaller and with a cruiser stern. However she was lost on 5^th July 1941 when she was torpedoed by U.96, some 300 miles off the Azores .

            The Hilary was aground twice in the Amazon during her early years. The first occasion was in November 1935, some 170 miles below Manaus , and in April 1936 she grounded two miles east of Goiabel on the notorious Mandahy Bank. One is reminded of the story attributed to Mark Twain, who, when asked by a passenger if he was the man who knew where the sandbanks were, replied: “No, I’m the man who knows where the sandbanks ain’t!”

            Far more serious was the occasion when the Hilary ran aground on rocks near Holyhead , Anglesey , in dense fog at 12.45am on Easter Sunday, 9^th April 1939. Because of the fog it was several hours before assistance arrived, but her 100 passengers were eventually taken off safely. The Hilary had sprung a leak forward, but was refloated and towed to Liverpool . It was an unfortunate experience for her master, Captain Lewis Evans of Pwllheli, who was due to retire at the end of the voyage.

            On the outbreak of the Second World War, the Hilary was initially left to her owners’ commercial service, but in January 1941 she was sent to South Shields and there converted for use as an armed boarding steamer. In May 1941 she sighted two Italian oil tankers off the Azores . One of these was scuttled before the Hilary had a chance to put a boarding party on board, but the other, the Gianna M was taken safely to Belfast by a prize crew from the Hilary.

            In April 1942 the Hilary ceased to operate as an armed boarding steamer and was returned to Booth Line management, but under Ministry of War Transport orders. On 16^th October 1942 she was acting as commodore ship of a convoy bound for New York when she was struck by a torpedo in her engine room. Luckily for the Hilary, the torpedo failed to explode. The story is best told in the words of her then master, Captain A. Elliott:

 “We had been followed by enemy submarines for about 24 hours, but had not been attacked. However, on the morning of 16^th October, at about 10.30am, we heard an explosion and felt a rather heavy tremor in the ship, just as if some other ship in the vicinity had been torpedoed.

            “The commodore gave an anxious look round his convoy but everything seemed very quiet and peaceful, with the ships all plodding along in their rightful stations. It suddenly struck me that we ourselves might have been hit, although our engines were still turning to the revolutions required. I thought I should send officers to check, and I myself went down to the after end of the ship, but no damage could be seen.

            “As I came forward again the chief engineer met me and took me down to the dynamo platform where he showed me a large dent in the ship’s plates. Some rivets had been sheared off, but there was no leak.

            “We had been hit by a torpedo in a very vulnerable part of the ship, but although the pistol had gone off, the main charge of the torpedo had failed to explode. If the mechanism had functioned there would have been very little chance of the ship surviving.”

            In March 1943 the Hilary was again requisitioned, this time as an infantry landing ship. The conversion was carried out by Cammell Laird at Birkenhead . Her passenger accommodation became mess decks, her public rooms communication and control centres, and six landing craft replaced her lifeboats. Armament included a 6-inch gun on her forecastle and a number of Oerlikons; a radar tower was built on the bridge and a searchlight platform constructed between the bridge and the funnel. The Hilary’s funnel, masts and superstructure were all left intact and not cut down or removed as with so many converted merchant ships.

            With her hull and superstructure painted grey, the Hilary sailed for the Mediterranean where she was based on Algiers , and on 10^th July 1943 she took part in Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily , acting as headquarters ship for Rear Admiral Sir Philip Vian. Two months later the Hilary was present at the Salerno landing, and in December 1943 she returned to Portsmouth , working up for the invasion of Europe .

            In June 1944 the Hilary took part in the Normandy landings as flagship of Force ‘J’ under Commodore G.N. Oliver. On 23^rd June, Admiral Vian transferred his flag to the Hilary after his cruiser HMS Scylla had been damaged by a mine.

            The Hilary returned to the Mersey in January 1945 and was handed back to her owners. Cammell Laird refitted her for her old commercial trade and provided accommodation for 93 first-class and 138 tourist-class passengers. By the end of 1945 the Hilary was once again sailing ‘1,000 miles up the Amazon’ for the Booth Line. She retained her pre-war appearance, but in 1947 the Booth Line houseflag was painted on each side of her funnel. In 1949 the Hilary was converted from coal burning to oil burning, and in 1951 she was joined on the Amazon by a new running-mate, the Hildebrand.

            When she was twenty five years old, the Hilary was sent to Antwerp for a four-month major refit, and re-appeared with an all-white hull, the only Booth liner ever to be so treated. She resumed service in April 1956 with her regular route now including calls at Barbados and Trinidad . Later in 1956 the Hilary was chartered to Elder Dempster for three round voyages to West Africa .

            On the Hilary’s arrival back at Toxteth Dock, Liverpool, on 14^th December 1956, Special Branch detectives boarded the ship to investigate the jamming of her steering gear in the Atlantic a week previously. The Hilary had been on her way home from West Africa via Las Palmas with 170 passengers. Third Officer James Turley was on the bridge and had given orders to turn to port when he saw another vessel approaching, but the Hilary would not answer her helm.

            The master, Captain T.E. Williams, was summoned and ‘not under command’ lights hoisted. An investigation revealed that an 18-inch wheel key, used to control heat in the galley, was missing from its usual place, and it was later found jammed in the steering mechanism. It was quickly removed. The wheel key, a heavy instrument three-quarters of an inch in diameter, with two lugs at one end for fitting in the locks of steam pressure doors, had been taken from the galley.

            For twenty minutes the Hilary was drifting in a busy sea lane. Captain Williams reported that other incidents had taken place during the voyage. Some electrical cables had been found cut or disconnected. The loudspeaker system had failed and the spare parts could not be found, and an alarm instrument on the turbine gear was found smashed.

            After two hours of investigation, Inspector Albert Allen of the Home Office Forensic Science Department ruled out the sabotage theory and said that no further police action was contemplated. Captain Williams commented: “There must have been a lunatic on board”.

            The loss of the Hildebrand in 1957 gave the Hilary a reprieve from the breakers’ yard until 1959, when she was sold for scrap. On 12^th September of that year she left the Mersey for the last time, under her own steam, bound for the Firth of Forth where she was broken up by Thos. W. Ward at Inverkeithing.

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