At about midday, Saintes began to tow the ship to Gibraltar, at a speed of around 3.5 knots (6.5 km/h), but Empire Windrush sank in the early hours of the following morning, Tuesday, 30 March 1954,[9] after having been towed a distance of only around 16 kilometres (8.6 nmi).
[citation needed], However, the voyage was plagued with engine breakdowns and other defects, including a fire after the departure from Hong Kong. [67] When the ship sank in 1954 she had the British Official Number 181561. She was delivered to Hamburg-Südamerikanische-Dampfschiffahrts-Gesellschaft (Hamburg South American Steam Shipping Company) in 1931, which named her '''Monte Rosa''' and used her for cruises.

[citation needed]. Monte Pascoal was damaged at by an air-raid on Wilhelmshaven in February 1944. By this time, she was the only survivor of the five Monte-class ships. This was used for British troopships and could stand for His Majesty's Troopship, His Majesty's Transport[6][7] or Hired Military Transport. [9] As the ship was government property, she was not insured.

Adequate supplies of food, water and fuel were found, and a meal had been prepared in the ship's galley. They were taken to Gibraltar by the aircraft carrier HMS Triumph, and from there returned to the United Kingdom by air. Monte-class passenger ships (in German) that were built by Blohm & Voss in Hamburg between 1924 and 1931 for Hamburg Süd (Hamburg South American Steam Shipping Company). [23], In September 1944, the vessel was damaged by another explosion, possibly from a mine. [1][2][35][36] They had been among a group of Polish people who had been living in Mexico since 1943,[35] and the Empire Windrush had called at Tampico, Mexico, in order to pick them up.

However they were only able to fight the fire for a few minutes before the loss of electrical power stopped the water pumps that fed their fire hoses. [21][self-published source?]

The Empire Windrush, carrying some 500 settlers from Jamaica, arrived at Tilbury Dock on 22 June 1948. One of the stowaways was Evelyn Wauchope, a 39-year-old dressmaker. [1], The ship also carried 66 people whose last country of residence was Mexico – they were a group of Polish people who had travelled from Siberia via India and the Pacific, and who had been granted permission to settle in the United Kingdom under the terms of the Polish Resettlement Act 1947. for 'Motor Vessel’. Three days before the ship arrived, Arthur Creech Jones, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, wrote a Cabinet memorandum noting that the Jamaican Government could not legally prevent people from departing, and the British government could not legally prevent them from landing.

This was the first time so many Caribbean people had come to live in Britain. Although a number did return the majority remained to settle permanently. [53] On board were 222 crew and 1,276 passengers, including military personnel and some women and children, dependents of some of the military personnel. [11], Monte Rosa ran aground off Thorshavn, Faroe Islands, on 23 July 1934,[12] but was refloated the next day.

In 1942, she was one of several ships used for the deportation of Norwegian Jewish people,[15] carrying a total of 46 people from Norway to Denmark, including the Polish-Norwegian businessman and humanitarian Moritz Rabinowitz. Of the 46 deportees carried on Monte Rosa, all but two died in Auschwitz concentration camp. [1] British Caribbean people who came to the United Kingdom in the period after World War II, including those who came on later ships, are sometimes referred to as the Windrush generation. [59], An inquiry into the sinking of Empire Windrush was held in London between the 21 June and 7 July 1954. Looking back on the experience years afterwards – in Forty Winters On, published by Lambeth Council – he recalled that as the ship drew towards England there was apprehension on board that the authorities would turn it back. She was operated as part of the state-owned Kraft durch Freude (Strength Through Joy) programme, which provided leisure activities and cheap holidays. During the manoeuvre, a bottle of champagne was hoisted from the Monte Rosa to the airship. The labour exchange nearest Clapham Common happened to be the one in Brixton, in Coldharbour Lane, and it was this that made Brixton the first of London’s new West Indian ghettoes. The Empire Windrush's voyage from the Caribbean to Tilbury took place in 1948.

stands for 'His Majesty’s Transport’ and M.V. [64][65], Windrush carried four, oil-burning, four-stroke single-acting MAN diesel engines of 6,880 horsepower (5,130 kW) total. [60] An alternative theory was that a fractured oil pipe deposited oil onto a hot exhaust pipe. Each country developed its own official numbering system, some on a national and some on a port-by-port basis, and the formats have sometimes changed over time.

[32][33][34] However, the ship's records, kept in the United Kingdom National Archives, indicate conclusively that 802 passengers gave their last place of residence as a country in the Caribbean. In his 2008 memoirs, he wrote that as well as German troops, the vessel was carrying Norwegian women with young children, who were being taken to Germany as part of the Lebensborn programme.
[63], In 2020, a fund-raising effort was begun for a project to recover one of the ship's anchors as a monument to the people of the Windrush generation. [5], The Monte-Class ships were named after mountains in Europe or South America. The others had organised some sort of job and accommodation for themselves beforehand. One misty morning in June 1948 a former German cruise boat, the Empire Windrush, steamed up the Thames to the Tilbury Dock, London, where she disembarked some 500 hopeful settlers from Kingston, Jamaica: 492 was the official figure, but there were several stowaways as well. The order was given to wake the passengers and crew and assemble them at their emergency stations, but the ship's public address system was not working, nor were its air and steam whistles, so the order had to be transmitted by word of mouth.

[49][50] The SS Empire Windrush arrived at Tilbury docks on 22 June 1948 carrying passengers from the Caribbean. About a dozen Empire Ships were named after British rivers; the River Windrush is a small tributary of the Thames, that flows through the Cotswolds towards Oxford. Let us inform and inspire people about the legacy of the Windrush pioneers, as well as aid ensuing generations appreciate the sacrifice and contribution of their parents and to understand how they can be a part of handing on this rich and fascinating legacy to future generations. Many of Empire Windrush's passengers only intended to stay for a few years. [19][18] One German Messerschmitt Bf 110 fighter was claimed shot down and two Beaufighters were lost[20]; the two crew of one aircraft were killed, the crew of the other survived to become prisoners of war. [citation needed], In 1948, Empire Windrush, which was en route from Australia to Britain via the Atlantic, docked in Kingston, Jamaica, to pick up servicemen who were on leave. [9] However, they were quickly picked up by Windrush's lifeboats and also by a boat from the first rescue ship, which reached the scene at 7.00 am. [4] The use of diesel engines reflected the experience Blohm & Voss had gained by building diesel-powered U-boats during World War I. [3], Monte Rosa was 500 ft 6 in (152.55 m) long, with a beam of 65 ft 8 in (20.02 m). SEARCH FOR NAMES ON THE PASSENGER SHIPS TO THE UK Ancestry records can be used to find the names of those .. FAMILY SEARCH SITE FOR CARIBBEAN FAMILIES   Family Search is a non-profit family history organisation ..

In 1948, Empire Windrush brought one of the first large groups of postwar West Indian immigrants to the United Kingdom, carrying 1,027 passengers and two stowaways on a voyage from Jamaica to London.