War service and sinking
In the Second World War the British government requisitioned Shuntien and converted her into a Defensively-Equipped Merchant Ship (DEMS).[6] Photographs of Shuntien taken about that time by a US photographer, Harrison Forman, show Shuntien in the Port of Shanghai apparently being converted into a prison ship. Shuntien moved to the Mediterranean, where her British officers supplemented her Chinese crew with Arab and Maltese recruits.[11]
In the Western Desert Campaign in December 1941 Shuntien left Tobruk in Cyrenaica, eastern Libya as a member of Convoy TA 5 bound for Alexandria in Egypt. She was carrying between 800 and 1,000 Italian and German prisoners of war,[3][12] guarded by more than 40 soldiers of the Durham Light Infantry (DLI).[13]
At about 19:02 on the evening of 23 December the Type VIIC GS U-559 torpedoed Shuntien,[11] blowing off her stern[6] and killing her captain, four officers and chief steward.[3][14] Her bow rose in the air and she sank within five minutes without having been able to launch any of her lifeboats.[6]
A convoy escort, the Flower-class corvette HMS Salvia (K97), rescued Shuntien's Master, William Shinn, 46 of the ship's officers and men and an unknown number of her prisoners, DEMS gunners and DLI guards.[15] The total number of survivors that Salvia rescued was about 100.[12][16] The Hunt-class destroyer HMS Heythrop (L85) rescued a smaller number: between 11[16] and 19.[6]
A few hours later, at about 01:35 A.m. On 24 December, GS U-568 torpedoed Salvia about 100 nmi west of Alexandria.[15] The torpedo broke the corvette in two and poured burning bunker oil onto the sea; no-one survived.[15] The small party of survivors aboard Heythrop was landed at Alexandria.[6] It included only one of Shuntien's officers, Second Engineer John Hawkrigg.[6]
