Haapalah / Aliyah Bet

SS Arandora Star, often wrongly cited as SS Andorra Star, was a British registered cruise ship operated by the Blue Star Line from the late 1920s through the 1930s.
Built: 1927, by Cammell Laird & Company, Limited for the Blue Star Line
Launched: April 1, 1927
Capacity: 12,847 gross tons
Length: 512.2 feet
Beam: 68.3 feet
Speed: 16 knots

In 1929, SS Arandora Star was sent to Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company Ltd., Glasgow, for refitting.

In June, 1940, SS Arandora Star evacuated troops from Norway and from France.

Late June, 1940, SS Arandora Star sailed from Glasgow.

On July 1, 1940, SS Arandora Star sailed from Liverpool, under command of Edgar Wallace Moulton, bound for St John's, Newfoundland and Canadian internment camps, carrying nearly 1,200 German and Italian internees.
Martin F. Auger cites SS Arandora Star carried 480 Class A internees and more than 730 Italian inmates.

At 6:58AM, July 2, 1940, off the northwest coast of Ireland, SS Arandora Star was torpedoed by U-Boat, U-47, commanded by Gunther Prien.
The torpedo ripped a huge hole, and thirty five minutes after the torpedo impact, SS Arandora Star sank.
The crew launched life boats, but only 9 could be freed.

Of the 1,200 internees on SS Arandora Star, 700-800 drowned, trapped in barbed wire.
The Captain went down with the ship.
Royal Air Force Sunderland flying boat and the Canadian destroyer, HMCS St. Laurent, were sent out to pick up survivors, and British Destroyer, HMS Walker, followed in the wake of HMCS St. Laurent, but was too late to find survivors
Many of the rescued survivors were put ashore in Greenock, and some of the injured treated in Mearnskirk Hospital near Glasgow.
For months, bodies continued washing up on the shores of Ireland.
Those who survived the disaster were later put aboard other ships bound for Canada.