King's Own Royal Regiment Museum

Troopships - Empire Orwell


HMT Empire Orwell, circa 1950s.
Accession Number: KO2668/64


HMT Empire Orwell off the coast of Aden circa 1953 with 1st Battalion King's Own in transit between the UK and Korea.  Photographed by Corporal Thomas Lowe.
Accession Number: KO2668/37

Empire Orwell
Built in 1936 by Blohm & Voss in Hamburg, Germany she was launched as the ‘Pretoria’.
During the war she became a hospital ship and was used for the evacuation of the Eastern territories in early 1945. Taken by the British is Copenhagen in May 1945 she served as the Empire Doon under the Orient Line management until 1950 when she underwent a major refit and became the Empire Orwell.
Sold to the Blue Funnel Line in 1958 she became the ‘Gunung Djati’ a pilgrim ship sailing between Indonesia and Jeddah on the Red Sea. In 1979 she was sold again to the Indonesian navy and spent her last years trooping as the Tanjung Pandan. She was scrapped in Taiwan in 1987.