TSS Lady of Mann
TSS Lady of Mann was a passenger ship was built by Vickers Armstrong for the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company at Barrow-in-Furness in 1930, at a cost of £249,073. Certificated to carry 2873 passengers and 81 crew, she was commissioned to operate on the Island's busy Douglas - Liverpool; Douglas - Fleetwood routes, and had a maximum speed of 23 knots. Her hull was at first the Company's conventional black, but was changed to white and green, only to revert to black after her war service.
| Career | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Lady of Mann |
| Owner: | 1930–1971: IOMSPCo. |
| Operator: | 1930–1971: IOMSPCo. |
| Port of registry: |
 Douglas, Isle of Man |
| Builder: | Vickers Armstrong, Barrow-in-Furness |
| Cost: | £249,073 |
| Yard number: | 145307 |
| Out of service: | August, 14th, 1971. |
| Fate: | Scrapped at Glasgow, 1971. |
| Status: | Disposed 1971 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Passenger Steamer |
| Tonnage: | 3,104 gross register tons (GRT) |
| Length: | 360' |
| Beam: | 50' |
| Draught: | 18'6" |
| Installed power: | 11,500 shaft horsepower |
| Propulsion: | Twin Screw; Steam Turbine |
| Speed: | 23+ knots |
| Capacity: | 2873 passengers |
| Crew: | 81 |
Service life
The year 1930 saw the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company celebrate it's centenary, and to mark this, the Lady of Mann was to be the largest ship ever built for it to that date. She was launched by the Duchess of Atholl, the Lady of Mann, after whom she was named.
The Lady of Mann exceeded 22 knots on her trials, and her speed was often over 23 knots on regular service. She was driven by two sets of single-reduction geared turbines; steam pressure 220 pounds p.s.i., and developed a shaft horsepower of 11,500. The ship was oil-fired by cylindrical scotch boilers.
Her initial work was on the Douglas - Fleetwood service where she took the place of the TSS Viking.
War Service
The Lady of Mann served at Dunkirk under Captain T.C. (Daddy) Woods and then at the evacuation of the north-western French ports. After this she spent four years on transport work from Lerwick. She then went south and was engaged in the D-Day landings on the Cherbourg peninsula.
Requisitioned as a personnel ship at the outbreak of war, she had a good turn of speed, and was able to get in and out of the Dunkirk bombardments and lift 4,262 men back to the relative safety of Dover and Folkstone. She remained for six hours in Dunkirk harbour on May 31, 1940, despite having been damaged by shellfire from shore batteries on her approach and being bombed by enemy aircraft. She emerged from the bombing with little damage and claimed one enemy aircraft shot down. She was back at Dunkirk in the early hours of June 1 and took off 1,500 casualties. The following day, June 2, she again steamed into Dunkirk but was ordered back for lack of troops, as by this time the evacuation was drawing towards its close. She picked up 18 French soldiers from a small boat on her way back and landed them in England. On the night of June 3, she made her last trip to the shattered harbour. She berthed alongside the East Pier at a little after midnight on the morning of June 4, and left for England after embarking another 1,244 troops in little over an hour. Later that afternoon, Operation Dynamo ended.
Twelve days later, the Lady of Mann was in action once more. She became part of the force of personnel ships assigned to Operation Ariel, the evacuation from the ports of north-west France. She was at Le Havre, Cherbourg and Brest, embarking troops as the enemy advanced in a vast encircling movement. She was one of the last three ships to leave Le Havre, and it was estimated she had 5,000 troops on board as she pulled out under air attack.
From the following August until April, 1944, the Lady of Mann preformed troop transport duties, mainly between Invergordon, Aberdeen and Lerwick and to the Faroes. At times she was also engaged ferrying troops and air force personnel from the RMS Queen Mary, which served throughout the war as a troop transport ship. The Queen would arrive in Belfast from Canada or the United States, turn around quickly and set off again westwards. The Steam Packet Company ship, was one of several that serviced the big Cunarder, taking troops on the final leg of their sea voyage to Greenock.
The Lady of Mann was then taken over by the Admiralty and converted to an LSI (H) - a Landing Ship Infantry (Hand Hoisting). She carried six landing assault craft, 55 officers and 435 men. On D-Day, June 6, 1944, she was the headquarters ship of the senior officer of the 512th Assault Flotilla, responsible for the landings in the Juno area near Courselles. Later in the month, while still on the Normandy operations, she was retired for repairs and then went back to her duties as a personnel carrier. She served as such for the remainder of the war, carrying on for some months afterward moving troops and bringing out displaced persons. She was mostly Channel plying to Ostende and the Hook from such ports as Dover and Harwich.
Post War
She returned to her home port, Douglas, on March 9, 1946, where she was given a civic reception. A local paper that week said that during her war service the Lady of Mann had carried more than 200,000 troops. Two months later, she was reconditioned and after her proud war service, Lady of Mann returned to her duties with the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company.
Her career continued until August 1971 when she was sold to Arnott Young and Co. in Glasgow for breaking up.
The Lady of Mann was an exceedingly popular ship. When she came to be broken up, enthusiasts wrote from all parts of Britain hoping to get souvenirs from her. One of her most elegant features of the centenary Lady of Mann was her main staircase which was made of mahogany. It was widely admired, and was another example of the type of furnishing that subsequently had to vanish. Before the ship had finished her service life, the staircase was in contravention of modern fire regulations. Alterations had to be made in the mid-sixties; the stylish opening had to be blocked in with steel walls, and steel doors had to be fitted. The appearance was largely sacrificed; the regulations concerning fire precautions duly satisfied.
But when the Lady was due to be broken up in the early 1970s the fine staircase was not quite finished. An enthusiast living in Castletown, succeeded in acquiring at least part of the woodwork, and it was reassembled at Lorne House in Castletown, where it remains to this day.
Steam Packet officials affectionately described her as having been 'foreman built'. For when she was in the Vickers Armstrong yards at Barrow, the builder was going through the very severe slump which followed the 1929 crash on Wall Street. Most of the yard staff had been dismissed and only key men kept on. It was these men who built the ship, and a very fine one she proved.
The name Lady of Mann was resurrected by the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company in 1976, when the fourth car ferry MS Lady of Mann joined the fleet.