Gdynia-America Shipping Lines S.A. (Gdynia America Line - GAL) was a Polish - Danish joint stock company based in Gdynia, established in 1930 under the name of the Polish Transatlantic Shipping Company Limited (PTTO) in order to mark the Polish presence on the Atlantic; in 1934 transformed into Gdynia-America Shipping Lines.
7-693: MS Sobieski was a Polish passenger ship launched in 1939. It was constructed for the South American service of the Gdynia-America Line – GAL to replace the aging SS Kościuszko and SS Pulaski . She was named in honour of the Polish king Jan III Sobieski . Sobieski was to be a sister ship to the MS ; Chrobry . Sobieski only managed one journey before the war, arriving in Buenos Aires on
14-601: The Genoa – Halifax – New York route, under the Polish flag. The vessel was sold to Russia in 1950 and renamed Gruziya and scrapped in Italy in 1975. This article about a specific cruise ship is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Gdynia-America Line %E2%80%93 GAL In 1930 the Polish government, faced with growing emigration to North and South America, decided to purchase an existing shipping line (including ships and existing organizational apparatus) with
21-552: The United States authorities severely reduced immigrant quotas and the line was threatened with bankruptcy. The Polish owners renamed the company Polskie Transatlantyckie Towarzystwo Okrętowe (Polish Transatlantic Shipping Company Limited or PTTO). Initially captains were provided by the Danish side, and Polish captains acted as doubles, preparing for independent command of the ships. The ships were operated by Gdynia America Line, which
28-568: The 10th of July 1939. The ship was used as a troopship in the Allied evacuation of western France in 1940 ( Operation Aerial ), where she was one of the last ships to leave St Jean de Luz during the final evacuation of Polish troops from France , and in the Battle of Dakar . During Operation Streamline Jane , the invasion of Madagascar, in May, 1942, Sobieski was the flag ship. She was also used to transport
35-664: The British 18th Division to the defence of Singapore . At the end of the war she repatriated the remnants of that division's Cambridgeshire Regiment that had survived captivity at the hands of the Japanese in Malaya and Thailand. She also returned former Changi prisoners of war ( POWs ) from Singapore, sailing via Cape Town and docking at Liverpool during a dockworkers' strike . Disgusted, dismayed ex-POWs had to unload their own baggage, such as it was. Between 1947-1950, Sobieski sailed on
42-787: The right to use piers in New York. After the failure of negotiations with Germany, the Baltic American Line owned by the Danish shipping company, the East Asiatic Company Limited (EAC, Det Ostasiatitske Kompagni) in Copenhagen was chosen. This line had three steam passenger ships named Polonia (ex-Kursk, built 1910), Estonia (ex-Czar, built 1912) and Lithuania (ex-Czaritza, built 1915) which were registered in Latvia. The Danish owners became eager to sell their interests, as in 1931
49-484: Was restructured in 1934 to absorb PTTO. The line added routes, particularly to South America, with its River Plate Service. The company was badly affected by World War II with many of its ships, being seized for war service and/or lost. In 1950 the company (and its few remaining ships) were folded into the state-owned Polish Ocean Lines . After the end of World War II, the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs submitted
#634365