The Empire Allenby was a 9,904 ton cargo liner

Cargo liner

A Cargo liner is a type of merchant ship which carried general cargo and often passengers. They became common just after the middle of the nineteenth century, and eventually gave way to container ships and other more specialized carriers in the latter half of the twentieth...

 which was built in 1944. She was renamed Drakenburg Castle in 1946, and scrapped in 1959.

History

Empire Allenby was built by J L Thompson & Sons Ltd

J.L. Thompson and Sons

J.L. Thompson and Sons was a shipyard on the River Wear, Sunderland, which produced ships from the mid-18th century until the 1980s. The world-famous Liberty Ship was among the designs to be created, produced and manufactured at the yard's base at North Sands....

, Sunderland as yard number 633. She was launched on 18 October 1944 and completed in June 1945. Empire Allenby was built for the Ministry of War Transport and operated under the management of Furness, Withy & Co Ltd, who traded as Prince Line Ltd.

In 1946, Empire Allenby was sold to the Union Castle Mail Steamship Co Ltd, who traded as the Union-Castle Line

Union-Castle Line

The Union-Castle Line was a prominent British shipping line that operated a fleet of passenger liners and cargo ships between Europe and Africa from 1900 to 1977. It was formed from the merger of the Union Line and Castle Shipping Line...

. She was renamed Drakensburg Castle. On 22 July 1947, she was transferred to the South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

n registry. Although Drakensburg Castle was a fast ship compared to others in the Union-Castle Line fleet, she was expensive to operate and not suitable for use as a tramp. She was sold for scrap to the Hong Kong Salvage & Towage Co and arrived for scrapping in Hong Kong on 5 August 1959. Drakensburg Castle was scrapped in September 1959.

Official number and code letters

Official Numbers were a forerunner to IMO Numbers

IMO ship identification number

The IMO ship identification number is made of the three letters "IMO" followed by the seven-digit number assigned to all ships by IHS Fairplay when constructed. This is a unique seven digit number that is assigned to propelled, sea-going merchant ships of 100 GT and above...

.

Empire Allenby had the UK Official Number 180157 and used the Code Letters

Code letters

Code letters were a method of identifying ships before the introduction of modern navigation aids. Later, with the introduction of radio, code letters were also used as radio callsigns.-History:...

GJTM.

External links

• Photo of Drakensburg Castle.