The steel steamship Palatine was launched from the Jarrow yard of Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Co Ltd (Yard No 599) on 23rd October 1888. SHe measured 275.6′ x 37.8′ x 18.8′ and her tonnage was 2110 gross tons, 1322 net tons. She was powered by a triple expansion engine by Palmers delivering 226 nominal horsepower. Completed in December 1888 she was delivered to her owners, Durham Steamship Co Ltd (W J Jobling manager) of Newcastle on 7th December. Her official number was 96130. In 1897 she was purchased by W S Miller and Co Ltd of Glasgow moving her home port to the Clyde and operations focussed on the west coast and Transatlantic routes. In 1915 Miller transferred her official ownership to the Ellaston Steamship Co Ltd.
Builder’s profile plan for Pallatine
Lloyd’s register 1915
1914 saw the outbreak of World War One and the emergence of the deadly German U-boat threat but for three years Palatine continued to ply her trade before she was finally to become a victim of a U-boat in 1917. Palatine left the home port on the Clyde during the second week of August 1917 bound for Bergen, Norway with a cargo of coal under the command of Captain Balfour Miller, an Orcadian with extensive merchant fleet experience. By the 16th she was west of Canna in the Small isles. That same day the German U-boat U-75 was patrolling the Minch under the command of Kapitanleutnant Fritz Schmolling. U-75 had departed from Helgoland on 4th August to patrol the waters north and west of Scotland. On 10th August she sank the Norwegian barque Solglimt south of Faroes before heading south west to the Minch, a favourite U-boat hunting ground with many allied ships steaming between the convoy assembly points in Firth of Lorne and Loch Ewe. In the early hours of the morning of 16th August Schmolling took up a holding position 10 miles north west of Canna and waited for any approaching ships. At 11:30am he spotted a steam yacht escort vessel which quickly moved off before he spotted Palatine, steaming north, only a few minutes later. At 12.22 he fired a single torpedo at her making a direct hit. The crew of Palatine managed to escape in the ship’s boat before she sank. In an unusual step Schmolling took Captain Miller prisoner before diving to avoid the approach on an incoming British destroyer. Miller was to spend the rest of the war in Schweidnitz POW camp.
U-75 KTB detail of attack position
The wreck believed to be Palatine lies in position 57° 07.850’N, 06° 47.142’W. She lies in 144 metres with a least depth clearance of 135 metres oriented 140/320 degrees. Her identity has not been confirmed due to the depth of the wreck but the wreck dimensions, very similar to the dimensions of Palatine, and the location close to the reported attack position of 57 08’N. 04 46’W in U75 logbook makes it certain that this is indeed Palatine.
