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HMS AURANIA
Armed Merchant Cruiser
This page is not meant to be a comprehensive history of HMS AURANIA but a record of sailors of the ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY who served in her, photos they took and stories they may have shared with their families.
Completed in September 1924 as steam passenger ship Aurania for the Cunard White Star Ltd, Liverpool. On 30 Aug 1939, requisitioned by the Royal Navy and converted to the armed merchant cruiser HMS AURANIA (F 28).
At 04.28 hours on 21 Oct 1941, U-123 fired a spread of three torpedoes at HMS Aurania (F 28) (A/Capt Ivan Walter Whitehorn, RN), which was travelling zigzagging at 13.5 knots in a group of five armed merchant cruisers behind convoy SL-89 and was hit at the bow and underneath the bridge by two torpedoes. The flooding of #3 hold caused a 25 degree list to port, but empty drums in the other holds kept the ship afloat. The master managed to correct the list to 15 degrees and the ship soon continued on a zigzag course at 8 knots. The U-boat was chased away by an escort.
On 23 October, HMS Aurania (F 28) arrived at Rothesay Bay under escort by HMS Totland (Y 88) (LtCdr S.G.C. Rawson, RN). The ship was under repair for 19 months and returned to service as repair ship HMS Artifex (F 28).
They shall not be forgotten
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In memory of those who have crossed the bar 
