Hospital Ship Grantala

Grantala was a hospital ship operated briefly by the Royal Australian Navy during the First World War. It was built by Armstrong Whitworth Company at their shipyard in Newcastle upon Tyne for the Adelaide Steamship Company and launched in 1903. It arrived in Sydney, from London, on 10 March 1904 and operated as a passenger steamer on Australian coastal runs, and could carry 225 passengers.

Grantala (Allan C Green, State Library of Victoria)

It was requisitioned by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) on 7 August 1914 at a cost of £1450 per month to become Australia’s first hospital ship and the only RAN hospital ship of the First World War. It was not commissioned, retained most of its civilian crew of about 80, and remained under the command of its master - Captain RE Brissenden. It was fitted out at Cockatoo Island Dockyard and Garden Island, its conversion to a hospital ship taking 17 days. Grantala was painted white overall with a green horizontal band along its hull and a prominent red cross on each side. It was allocated Hospital Ship number VIII.

Acting Fleet Surgeon William Horsfall supervised the conversion and, using his knowledge from service in HM Hospital Ship Maine and the US hospital ship Solace, he ensured practical structural alterations were made to allow for the proper functioning of the medical facilities. A large quantity of hospital ship stores had been transferred by the Royal Navy to the RAN in 1913 and stored at Garden Island. This included iron swing cots, blankets, sheets, hospital crockery, drugs, dressings and a complete hospital laundry. This enabled Grantala to be fitted out quite quickly.

The passenger saloons were cleared of all furniture and fitted with iron cots and became the main wards. Cabin doors were removed and the cabins fitted to accommodate 2 patients each. Another 2 cabins were padded to hold patients with mental illness while the upper decks were fitted with iron cots and screens for patients with tuberculosis. This was a common illness in warships at the time. An infectious diseases ward was built on the poop deck, and an x-ray room and laundry were also installed.

On completion of the work Grantala had the capacity to carry up to 300 patients. Horsfall also oversaw the recruiting and training of its 60 medical staff. Recruiting commenced on 16 August with the last member of the medical staff joining the ship on the 29th. The staff included 7 surgeons, a chaplain (the Reverend Charles Hudson from Williamstown Naval Depot), 23 sick berth stewards (mainly from the New South Wales Ambulance Brigade in Sydney), a dispenser (pharmacist), radiographer, pathologist, an operating room assistant and a laundryman.

Seven nurses were also recruited from the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital becoming the first women to be enlisted in the RAN and each was allocated a service number. They were:

(4839)  Matron Sarah Melanie De Mestre
(4840)  Sister Florence Elizabeth McMillan
(4841)  Sister Stella Lillian Colless
(4842)  Sister Rachel Clouston
(4843)  Sister Constance Margaret Neale
(4844)  Sister Bertha Ellen Burtinshaw
(4845)  Sister Rosa Angela Kirkcaldie

Nine other men with specialist skills were recruited to augment the ship’s crew:

• a master at arms
• 2 ships corporals (to maintain good order and discipline)
• 2 leading carpenters
• a staff clerk
• a yeoman of signals (for communication with warships)
• 2 able seaman to operate the ship’s 2 motorboats.

Grantala departed Sydney on 30 August 1914 and steamed north to Townsville. It sailed from there on 8 September and went directly to Rabaul where it arrived on the 13th, thus missing the fighting on 11 September which resulted in 6 dead and a dozen wounded among the men of the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (ANMEF). Its arrival at Rabaul was somewhat dramatic as it had been spotted by the destroyer HMAS Yarra approaching Blanche Bay (on which Rabaul is situated) and was mistaken for a German vessel. Yarra put a shot across its bow and then, after confirming the ship’s identity, allowed its to proceed.

After anchoring off Rabaul, Grantala began treating the wounded, sick and injured from the ANMEF and German forces, the fleet (including 20 sailors from the French warship Montcalm with gastroenteritis) and attached auxiliary vessels. One patient, a young sailor with a badly fractured leg, spent 58 days on board before being returned to his ship. Some of Grantala’s crew became patients as well.

By the first week of October the Australian naval forces began to disperse with some ships returning to Australia. Others moved eastwards to Suva, Fiji, where Vice Admiral George Patey (flying his flag in the battle-cruiser HMAS Australia) was positioned to conduct further searches for the German East Asian Fleet. By 4 October 1914, Grantala was alone at Rabaul but sailed soon after for Suva. It arrived there on the 13th and remained in port until after the German East Asian Squadron had been destroyed at the Battle of the Falklands on 8 December 1914.

Grantala arrived in Sydney on 22 December 1914 with only 4 patients now on board. Most of its medical and additional staff were demobilised the next day. A few sick berth stewards, under the command of Surgeon Horsfall, remained on board for another week to return stores and finalise administration. Of note is that 5 of Grantala’s nurses subsequently enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service, while Sister Kirkcaldie travelled to England and enlisted in Queen Alexandria’s Imperial Medical Nursing Service. Sister Burtinshaw was married following her return to Australia and thus became ineligible for further military service.

On 29 December 1914 Grantala, while still under government charter, sailed in company with the requisitioned vessel Werribee to search for the Australian government trawler Endeavour, reported overdue on a resupply voyage from Macquarie Island to Hobart. The trawler had been contracted to take supplies and replacement personnel to the meteorological station at Macquarie Island. It arrived there on 29 November and departed on 3 December. When it failed to arrive at Hobart, a search began. Grantala took part in this fruitless search and arrived back at Sydney on 9 February 1915. No trace of Endeavour, or its crew of 20, was ever found and it was deemed lost due to bad weather.

Grantala was restored to its original configuration and returned to its owners in early 1915. It was later sold to the Red Funnel Shipping Company and renamed Figuig. In 1920 it was on-sold to Compagnie Générale Transatlantique and used on the passenger run between Marseilles and Algiers. It was broken up for scrap in Italy in 1934.