MS Sobieski

MS Sobieski was a Polish passenger ship launched in 1939. It was constructed for the South American service of the Gdynia-America Line – GAL to replace the aging SS Kościuszko and SS Pulaski. She was named in honour of the Polish king Jan III Sobieski. Sobieski was to be a sister ship to the MS Chrobry.^[2]

HMS Sobieski in wartime service
History
Name	Sobieski
Owner	Gdynia-America Line – GAL
Port of registry	1950–1975: Odessa, Soviet Union
Route	South America service
Builder	Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson, Wallsend.
Launched	25 August 1938
Completed	15 June 1939
Maiden voyage	15 June 1939
Out of service	1939 taken up as troopship
Identification	Call sign: UPOV IMO number: 5136866
Fate	1975 scrapped at La Spezia
Notes	1947 returned to civilian service 1950 sold to Russia renamed Gruziya
General characteristics
Tonnage	11,030 GRT
Length	155.85 m (511 ft 4 in)
Beam	20.41 m (67 ft 0 in)
Draft	8.30 m (27 ft 3 in)
Installed power	Engines by J. G. Kincaid & Co, Greenock
Propulsion	2 × screws 2 × two-stroke diesel engines
Speed	17 knots (31 km/h)
Capacity	44 first-class, 250 third-class and 850 emigrants
Notes	[1]

Maiden voyage

Sobieski only managed one journey before the war, arriving in Buenos Aires on the 10th of July 1939.^[3]

Wartime service

The ship was used as a troopship in the Allied evacuation of western France in 1940 (Operation Aerial), where she was one of the last ships to leave St Jean de Luz during the final evacuation of Polish troops from France, and in the Battle of Dakar. During Operation Streamline Jane, the invasion of Madagascar, in May, 1942, Sobieski was the flag ship.^[4]

She was also used to transport the British 18th Division to the defence of Singapore.

Post-war

At the end of the war she repatriated the remnants of that division's Cambridgeshire Regiment that had survived captivity at the hands of the Japanese in Malaya and Thailand. She also returned former Changi prisoners of war (POWs) from Singapore, sailing via Cape Town and docking at Liverpool during a dockworkers' strike. Disgusted, dismayed ex-POWs had to unload their own baggage, such as it was.

Between 1947-1950, Sobieski sailed on the Genoa – Halifax – New York route, under the Polish flag.^[5]

The vessel was sold to Russia in 1950 and renamed Gruziya and scrapped in Italy in 1975.

Pictures

• 
  Duke of Wellington's Regiment aboard Sobieski on route to Norway, 20 April 1940
• 
  Gruziya, the former Sobieski, in Helsinki