QSMV Dominion Monarch was a UK passenger and refrigerated cargo liner. Her name was a reference to the Dominion of New Zealand. The prefix "QSMV" stood for quadruple-screw motor vessel.
The ship was built in England in 1937–39, and when new, she set a number of records for her size and power. She operated between Britain and New Zealand via Australia in civilian service 1938–40 and 1948–62 and was a troop ship 1940–47. She spent half of 1962 in the Port of Seattle as a floating hotel for the Century 21 Exposition, and was then scrapped in Japan.
Building Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson of Wallsend, built Dominion Monarch as yard number 1547 for Shaw, Savill & Albion Line. Her keel was laid on 14 July 1937 in one of Swan Hunter's West Yards. She represented a transition in steel shipbuilding, as the decks and butts of her topside plating were assembled by electric welding (then relatively new in British shipyards) but the rest of her hull were assembled by the more traditional method of rivetting. She cost £1,500,000 to build.
Eleanor, Lady Harrison, wife of Frederick Lewis, 1st Baron Essendon launched the ship on 27 July 1938. The London & North Eastern Railway laid on a special train that ran non-stop from London to Wallsend. Hauled by locomotive No. 4492 Dominion of New Zealand, it carried dignitaries including the High Commissioners of Australia, South Africa, Southern Rhodesia and New Zealand. Baron Essendon was Chairman of Furness Withy, which had been Shaw, Savill & Albion's parent company since 1933.
Dominion Monarch set a number of records. She was the largest ship built on the River Tyne since Swan Hunter had built the Cunard Liner in 1906. She was primarily a cargo liner, being built with accommodation for only 525 passengers. She had 160 single cabins and 182 multiple-berth cabins, including two de luxe suites. Her public rooms included a cinema, games deck, a by open air swimming pool, a separate dining room for children, and Jacobethan-style smoking room complete with fireplace and mullioned windows. Several of her public rooms were air conditioned. All her accommodation was first class, and she remains the largest cargo liner with all first-class passenger accommodation ever built.
Dominion Monarch was the world's most powerful motor liner. She was powered by four William Doxford & Sons five-cylinder two-stroke single-acting diesel engines, each of bore by stroke. Two engines were built by Swan Hunter and two under licence by Sunderland Forge. The engines were the largest that Doxford's had constructed. Together they gave her a rating of 5,056 NHP or 32,000 bhp, a top speed of and cruising speed of at an engine speed of 123 rpm.
The ship had four 100 lbf/in2 double-ended auxiliary boilers. Onboard electricity was supplied by five six-cylinder 900 bhp Allen diesel engines, each powering a 600 kW 220 volt generator. Much of her cargo space was refrigerated. Her navigation equipment included wireless direction finding, and echo sounding device and a gyrocompass.
Dominion Monarch was completed on 12 January 1939. On 28 January, she had her sea trials off St Abb's Head, Berwickshire, Scotland. before sailing to London, where she was docked at the King George V Dock in the evening of 29 January. She was then handed over to her owners, who registered her in Southampton.
Pre-war service The new ship sailed from North East England to London to load cargo for her maiden voyage. Facilities there had been upgraded in preparation for her, with eight new three-ton capacity electric cranes having been installed on the north quay of the King George V Dock. She left London on 17 February 1939, and made her first call at Southampton where she embarked passengers for Australia and New Zealand. She then called at Tenerife in the Canary Islands for bunkers, Cape Town and Durban in South Africa; and Fremantle, Melbourne, and Sydney in Australia. On 24 April 1939 she reached Wellington in New Zealand, where she had a slight collision with the crane vessel Hikitia. Dominion Monarch also visited Napier, New Zealand. Her voyage set more records, including fastest passage from Britain to Australia via the Cape of Good Hope, largest ship to serve Australia, and largest ship to serve New Zealand. On the Durban to Fremantle leg, she averaged .
After her maiden voyage, Dominion Monarch switched from Tenerife to Las Palmas for her regular refueling stop in the Canary Islands. Her regular journey time between Southampton and Wellington was 35 days. Shaw, Savill and Albion promoted the service as "The Clipper Route", and fares began at £58. With the break bulk cargo handling techniques of her era the ship was able to make three round trips a year, spending almost as much time unloading and loading in Britain and New Zealand as voyaging at sea.
Second World War service On her third voyage from Britain Dominion Monarch was en route from Fremantle to Melbourne on 3 September 1939, the day that France and Britain declared war on Germany. Her crew began painting her grey, and on 8–9 September she called at Sydney, where she was armed with two guns. One was an obsolescent BL 6-inch Mk VII naval gun that had been salvaged from the 1899 battleship when she was scrapped in 1920; the other was an anti-aircraft gun whose field of fire had to be limited to avoid hitting the liner's own funnels. She reached Wellington on 12 September, spent 17–23 September in Lyttelton for cargo, called at Wellington again on 28 September, and berthed at Auckland for a week from 30 September to embark passengers. On 7 October she left for Britain, calling at Sydney, Melbourne, Fremantle, Durban, Cape Town in South Africa and Freetown in Sierra Leone before reaching The Downs in the North Sea off Kent on 28 November. The Admiralty considered requisitioning her as a troop ship, but at this stage rejected her as too luxurious.
Dominion Monarch was laid up for six weeks in Tilbury but then resumed her route, sailing on 9 January 1940 via Cape Town, Fremantle and Melbourne to Sydney, where she arrived on 12 February. This time, she did not continue to New Zealand, but spent 11 days at Sydney before starting her return voyage on 23 February. Because of the German submarine threat, she attracted few passengers in either direction, so on the return voyage from Australia, much of her passenger accommodation carried extra cargo. Her public rooms were stacked with crates of fruit and vegetables, and bales of wool were stowed on her games deck. She called at Melbourne and Cape Town, and reached The Downs on 1 April.
The ship left Britain again on 28 April 1940. In wartime merchant and naval ships were blacked out, including their navigation lights. In May Dominion Monarch collided with a coaster that was part of a convoy in the English Channel. Damage seems to have been slight, as she continued via Cape Town to Australia, calling at Fremantle, Adelaide and Melbourne before reaching Sydney on 6 June.
On her return voyage Dominion Monarch embarked 100 Australian soldiers in Sydney and brought them via Melbourne, Cape Town and Freetown to Liverpool in England, where she arrived on 29 July. At this time, she was still an unconverted civilian liner, housing the 100 troops in a ship built for 525.
Troop ship In June 1940 Italy entered the war and France surrendered to Germany, which neutralised the French Navy, gave the Kriegsmarine submarine bases on the French Atlantic coast, and made the Mediterranean almost impassable for Allied shipping. Allied merchant and troop ships had to take much more circuitous routes to reduce the risk of submarine attack, so more ships were needed to move the same number of personnel, and amount of goods and material. The need for troop ships was therefore increased, and in August 1940 the Admiralty requisitioned Dominion Monarch at Liverpool. She then spent six weeks in Liverpool while she was converted to carry 142 officers and 1,341 other ranks.
On 10 September the ship left Liverpool carrying an anti-aircraft regiment to Egypt. To avoid the Mediterranean she sailed with Convoy AP 3/1 via Cape Town, reaching Suez in Egypt on 22 October. She was then sent via Colombo in Ceylon, and Fremantle and Melbourne, to Sydney where she arrived on 22 November. There she was drydocked at Cockatoo Island Dockyard, the armament was increased and the troop accommodation was modified because it did not conform to Australian regulations. She left on 3 December and reached Wellington on the 6th, where she loaded cargo and embarked 1,434 New Zealand troops.
At Wellington Dominion Monarch formed part of Convoy US 8. This was a fleet of troop ships that included three of Cunard White Star's largest ocean liners: the , and , which between them embarked 11,372 troops. Canadian Pacific's and another troop ship carried another 2,892 troops and were part of the convoy as far as Sydney.
The total number of troops on the convoy was nearly 15,700, and Government representatives and a large number of citizens bade them farewell with a public ceremony when the convoy sailed on 19 December. The cruisers , and escorted the convoy, which called at Fremantle before reaching Trincomalee and Colombo in Ceylon in January 1941, whence Dominion Monarch continued with Convoy US 8/1 to Egypt. She again collided with a coaster, this time off Perim in the Bab-el-Mandeb at the entrance to the Red Sea. She sustained only minor damage, continued through the Suez Canal, and reached Port Said on 29 January. There she narrowly avoided being hit in an air raid before leaving two days later.
Dominion Monarch was carrying a full cargo of frozen meat and dairy produce from New Zealand to Britain, and after disembarking her troops she returned through the Suez Canal, reaching Suez on 3 February. She left Suez on 6 February with Convoy SU 1A, which dispersed in the Indian Ocean. En route she embarked 300 Abyssinian refugees from the East African Campaign and took them to Mombasa in Kenya. She then continued via Cape Town to Liverpool, where she arrived on 18 March 1941.
The ship spent five weeks in Liverpool, leaving on 24 April for the Firth of Clyde where she became part of Convoy WS 8/A. This left on 26 April and took her via Freetown to Durban, whence she continued unescorted via Durban and Wellington, reaching Auckland on 7 July. After a fortnight in port she left Auckland on 22 July for Liverpool, but this time via the Pacific Ocean and Panama Canal. She called at Curaçao on 10 August and reached Halifax, Nova Scotia on the 16th to await a convoy to Britain. She became part of Convoy TC 12B, which also included P&O's troop ship and CP's Empress of Russia. TC 12B left Halifax on 26 August for the Firth of Clyde, and Dominion Monarch continued to Liverpool where she arrived on 1 September. The ship spent September 1941 in Liverpool.
Three times around the world
Britain, her Allies and the United States were increasingly concerned at Japanese aggression in the Far East. Dominion Monarch embarked 1,672 troops – 238 more than her usual capacity – and on 29 September left Liverpool in Convoy WS 12, which was carrying more than 41,500 troops to the Far East. WS 12 had 19 troop ships, including Holland America Line's , P&O's and four Canadian Pacific troop ships: , , Empress of Russia and Duchess of Richmond. WS 12 reached Freetown on 14 October, where Dominion Monarch left five days later for Cape Town and the Indian Ocean. At sea on 17 November the cruiser met a group of ships from Convoy WS 12 – Dominion Monarch, Empress of Canada and Duchess of Richmond and the cargo liner Perseus – to form Convoy WS 12J to Colombo, whence Dominion Monarch and Empress of Canada continued with Glasgow and the destroyer as Convoy WS 12V, reaching Singapore on 28 November.