Postcard Friday - SHIPS

It's Postcard Friendship Friday - see other participants here at Marie's blog

I love to find theme in the postcards that I have. This morning I found these ship postcards...I probably have more but too many to go thru at 5:00 am!! The first one is the ship "Teutonic" - a White Star Liner whose history reads: The SS Teutonic was a steamship built for the White Star Line in Belfast and was the first armed merchant cruiser. When Teutonic was launched on January 19, 1889, she was the first White Star ship not to have square rigged sails. The ship was completed on the July 25, 1889 and participated in the Spithead Naval Review on August 1, commemorating Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee.

Imagine the feeling of NOT having square rigged sails on a ship for the first time. What progress!


The second ship is another White Star liner - the Oceanic.
RMS Oceanic was a transatlantic ocean liner, built for the White Star Line. She sailed on her maiden voyage in 1899 and until 1901, was the largest ship in the world. In 1912, the Oceanic was one of the rescue vessels that retrieved bodies from the sinking of the RMS Titanic in the North Atlantic Ocean

At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, she was commissioned into Royal Navy service on 8 August 1914 as an armed merchant cruiser.

On 25 August 1914, the newly-designated HMS Oceanic departed Southampton to patrol the waters from the North Scottish mainland to the Faroes, in particular the area around Shetland, and ran aground and was wrecked off the island of Foula, Shetland on 8 September 1914. She was the first Allied passenger ship to be lost in the war.

And last - a simple postcard of a ship with a little "Bon Voyage" message - someone going from Bone to Marseilles perhaps. Sounds lovely - doesn't it?

First I had to look up the shipping company and found this information.

Société Générale de Transport Maritimes (S.G.T.M.)

Formed in 1865 principally to carry iron ore from Bone to Marseilles and Sete and in 1865 also opened services between Marseilles, Algiers and Oran. Passenger services to South America commenced in 1867. In 1907 a subsidiary Compagnie de Navigation France-Amerique was set up. A monthly service to the West Indies commenced in 1915 and was shortly afterwards extended to Gulf of Mexico ports and New Orleans. The company suffered considerable losses in World War I but rebuilt their fleet. They finally ceased passenger operations in 1964 mainly due to the rising popularity of air travel, but continued with cargo trade.

Routes:

* Marseilles - Genoa - Naples
* Marseilles - Dakar - Bahia - Rio de Janeiro - Santos - Montevideo - Buenos Aires.
* Marseilles - Algiers - Point a Pitre - Fort de France - Gulf ports.
* Marseilles - Oran.
* Marseilles - Algiers.
* Marseilles - Bougie.
* Marseilles - Bone - Philippeville.
* Marseilles - Sete - Oran - Mostaganem. (cargo only)


I didn't have a clue where Bone was so of course, I had to look it up - see the info below. Imagine - the home of St. Augustine!

Annaba

formerly Bône

Seaport (pop., 2004 est.: 410,700), northeastern Algeria. Identified with the port of ancient Hippo (or Hippo Regius), it was a rich city of Roman Africa. It was home to St. Augustine 396–430. Severely damaged by the Vandals in 431, it passed to the Byzantine Empire in 533 before being overrun by the Arabs in the 7th century and named Bona. It was occupied by the French in 1832 when they conquered Algeria. Modern Annaba is Algeria's chief exporter of minerals; it also serves as a trading port and port of call.

Now isn't this great? Because of PFF I now know about the first ship lost in the first world war; have thought about what it was like to build a ship without square rigged sails, and found out where there city of Bone was...and where a saint lived in the years 300 something.

I love research of this sort.....

Happy Postcard Friendship Friday everyone