The Sinking of SS Tubantia, 1916
Did the Dutch liner go down with a cargo of gold on board, or only cheese?
SS Tubantia was a luxury liner built for the Dutch in 1913. She was designed for speed and luxury, particularly for service between the Netherlands and South America.
Tubantia was state-of-the-art in that electricity was used for all on-board facilities, even down to personal cigar lighters in every stateroom. Being brightly lit was regarded as a safety feature, in that being easily seen as a civilian ship belonging to a neutral country during wartime would be an additional safety feature.
However, this did not prove to be the case on 16th March 1916, when SS Tubantia was at anchor 58 miles from the Dutch coast and was hit by a torpedo fired by UB-13, a German U-boat. Fortunately, three nearby ships immediately came to her rescue and there were no casualties.
One reason why nobody died as a result of the sinking was that the ship had very few passengers at the time. Despite all the claims of being a safe ship, not many people were willing to take the risk of a voyage at a time when U-boat wolf packs were known to be patrolling in the region.
At first, the German government denied responsibility for the sinking, coming up with the strange claim that Tubantia must have encountered a stray torpedo that had been…