Sepia Saturday 733 - On the water

I wrote about this subject before but assume that for most Sepians the story is new. Obviously, it is about water, about seawater to be more precise. The story starts in Newcastle-upon-Tyne on January 24, 1925. On that day a Lady Addis arrived on the Hawthorn Wharf there. Lady Addis was the wife of Sir Charles Stewart Addis, a.o. director of the famous P&O Line. This shipping company ordered four new ships for the London-Bombay mail service. They were named after Indian cities whose names all started with an R, hence they were known as the R-ships. Lady Addis came to the wharf to baptize P&O's latest R-ship, the SS Ranchi.

SS Ranchi

Apart from sailing between the UK and India, at the time still a British colony, she also did cruises in the Mediterranean. But in August 1939 the SS Ranchi was requisitioned by the British Admiralty to serve as an armed merchant cruiser. To accommodate guns her after funnel was removed as can be seen in the picture below.

In that configuration, the ship sailed some 300,000 miles on patrol and escort services until she was refitted as a troopship in 1943. The Ranchi participated in the Allied invasion of Italy. In 1947 she was reconditioned again to carry emigrants predominantly to Australia.

On August 15, 1945, the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies, present-day Indonesia, came to an end. Also, British troops were instrumental in the surrender of Japanese forces.  Shortly after, the Indonesian independence movement gained momentum. This resulted in over 200,000 Dutch troops being sent to the Dutch colony to reestablish Dutch rule there. However, in 1949 the Dutch government was forced to recognize reality and Indonesia became an independent state.

Part of the Dutch military presence consisted of the Royal Dutch (East) Indian Army (KNIL). These troops consisted of soldiers whose families lived there for ages and also many indigenous people. After the independence declaration, they had the option of becoming Indonesian nationals. However, most of them opted for the Dutch nationality and had to leave the country. Many had to leave in a hurry because their security situation deteriorated rapidly. During the year 1950 over 100,000 people left Indonesia by ship, and the vast majority came to The Netherlands. It is easy to imagine that for this operation many passenger ships were needed and the SS Ranchi was one of them. Chartered by the Dutch government she left the port of Tanjung Priok, near Djakarta, on August 29, 1950.

The passenger manifest showed 973 passengers of which 781 KNIL troops including their wives and children. The voyage to Amsterdam ended on September 25 after having sailed the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, the Suez Canal, the Mediterranean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Channel, and the North Sea. Surprisingly, upon arrival in Amsterdam, the number of passengers turned out to be 1,010! A plausible reason for this increase is the discovery of stowaways or the captain picking up crew from a sinking ship. But the true reason was that during the trip 35 women gave birth to a total of 37 babies!

Afterward, it appeared that the military knew about all these pregnant women in advance. They put as many as possible on a limited number of ships. These ships were accommodated with all the necessary medical staff and equipment including delivery rooms. The Dutch press quickly called them the Baby ships.

Obviously, not all these babies were born at the same time. Fortunately, I have found many details about this trip a.o. in the Dutch National archives in The Hague. There I found their names and the date and time of their birth. I have been in contact with several of them and some knew exactly the latitude and longitude of their birthplace. For others, I have made calculations based on the assumed speed of the Ranchi. The result is on the map below.

Route map with the places of birth of the 37 Ranchi babies 

Maybe you wonder how I ran into this story. It so happened that I saw an obituary in one of our newspapers.

Obituary of Esther Henriëtte Ranchita

First, I saw the deceased was born on a ship during a period when many ships sailed from the former Dutch East Indies. There were 95 of these ships in 1950 alone! But what really attracted my attention was the given name 'Ranchita'. And I thought Ranchi, Ranchita, this cannot be a coincidence! And it wasn't. When later, I had a look at all 37 baby names, and I found more 'ship names': Ranchi, Ranchis, Ranchia, and Ranchita. All in all 13 babies with an R-name. Believe it or not, Lady Addis, the godmother of the Ranchi, had 13 children as well!

Apparently, the ship's captain also found this a special trip. In his farewell letter to his passengers, he wrote: "I trust that all passengers, especially the little Ranchis and Ranchitas will remember this voyage to Amsterdam with pleasant recollection. I noticed since Aden the local storks have been interested in this ship. I have personally seen dozens, which probably accounts for the additions to our passenger list."

Altogether, the SS Ranchi made two trips as a charter for the Dutch government in 1950. Whether this contributed to her final demise, I don't know but in 1953 the Ranchi was scrapped in Newport, Wales. On January 19, almost to the day 28 years after she was launched, she was handed over to the demolition crews. She survived Lady Addis by less than a year. 

In case you like to know more about the described trip of the SS Ranchi, please see here.

For more watery contributions, please see the Sepia Saturday site.

Notes:

The other three R-ships were the SS Rawalpindi, SS Ranpura, and the SS Rajputana.

Nine years ago I found the colored image of the SS Ranchi on http://www.npg.org.uk.

The b/w picture is made bij photographer Alan C. Green (1878-1954).