The steamship Rohilla was built in 1906, by Harland and Wolff shipyard, Belfast as a passenger and cruise liner. In 1908 she joined her sister ship ‘Rewa’ as a permanent troop ship, in August 1914 the Rohilla was requisitioned as a Naval hospital ship. Amongst the crew were 15 men from a small cotton weaving community, the men from the Ambulance brigade were amongst those who were responsible for the care of Prince Albert brought onboard the Rohilla at Scapa Flow, suffering with appendicitis, the Prince was later crowned King George.
Leaving Leith with 229 persons onboard the ship was bound for Dunkirk to pick up wounded soldiers. Those onboard were made up of crew and medical staff. The ship would have had the threat of German U-boats and numerous minefields to contend with. In deteriorating weather the ship was operating under wartime restrictions with no lights and sound signals to aid navigation.
With the last dead reckoning position taken off the ‘Tyne’ the ship travelled on, the master ‘Captain David Landles Neilson’ assuming the vessel was several miles offshore. When the ship first hit the edge of a treacherous rock scar known as ‘Whitby Rock’ he believed they had hit a mine, turning his vessel toward the shore at full speed to attempt to minimise casualties he was unaware of the danger just a short distance away. Moments later the ship struck the rock scar a move that was the fatal blow to the ship. Stuck aground just 600 yards off the shore, the ship was ‘so close to safety yet so far’ in terms of the insurmountable circumstances. The story unfolds to explain many heroic attempts to save those onboard including lifting one lifeboat over a pier wall and across the scar whilst another was carried across land in an attempt to help those stranded on the doomed vessel.
Getting alongside the vessel the lifeboat took off 17 persons including “Miss Roberts” a lady who also survived the sinking of the Titanic. Of the 229 persons onboard the Rohilla 85 were lost in tragic circumstances. The rescue of those who survived is listed in the annals of the lifeboat institution as ‘one of the worst services’ which the lifeboats have ever attended, in all six lifeboats are on record as attempting rescue of those stranded on what remained of the once proud ship. The saviour of the last fifty who had to endure over fifty hours amongst the wreckage was a motor lifeboat that had travelled through the night in a severe storm from Tynemouth
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