Dumra
| Name | Dumra | ||
| Type: | Motor merchant | ||
| Tonnage | 2.304 tons | ||
| Completed | 1922 - Charles Hill & Sons, Bristol | ||
| Owner | British India Steam Navigation Co Ltd, London | ||
| Homeport | Glasgow | ||
| Date of attack | 5 Jun, 1943 | Nationality:  British | |
| Fate | Sunk by U-198 (Werner Hartmann) | ||
| Position | 28.15S, 33.20E - Grid KP 5989 - See location on a map - | ||
| Complement | 93 (26 dead and 67 survivors). | ||
| Convoy | |||
| Route | Tulear, Madagascar - Durban | ||
| Cargo | Lorries | ||
| History | Completed in August 1922 | ||
| Notes on loss | At 07.50 hours on 5 Jun, 1943, the unescorted Dumra (Master Wilfred Charles Cripps) was hit by two torpedoes from U-198 northeast of Durban. The ship lost its bow, but remained afloat and the master and some crew members remained aboard while the most men abandoned ship in the lifeboats. After 10 minutes, the U-boat fired a coup de grâce that hit amidships and caused the ship to sink immediately. The master was blown overboard and picked up by one of the boats but died shortly afterwards, 24 crew members and one gunner were also lost. The motorboat took the other lifeboats in tow for the Santa Lucia Lighthouse and 65 crew members and one gunner landed at Santa Lucia Bay, Natal. The chief engineer Henry Townsend Graham was taken prisoner by the U-boat. On 26 June, he and Owen Reed, the master of William King, were transferred to the German supply ship Charlotte Schliemann, which landed them at Batavia, Java in August 1943. They were handed over to the Japanese and taken to a POW camp. Both men were killed aboard the Japanese “hell ship” Junyo Maru, when she was torpedoed and sunk by HMS Tradewind (P 329) (LtCdr S.L.C. Maydon, DSO and Bar, RN) on 18 Sep, 1944 en route from Batavia to Padang, Sumatra. 5620 men of the 4200 Javanese slave labourers and 2300 Allied prisoners on board died. | ||
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