Mendanau
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| Name | Mendanau | ||
| Type: | Steam merchant | ||
| Tonnage | 6.047 tons | ||
| Completed | 1922 - Blohm & Voss, Hamburg | ||
| Owner | NV Stoomvaart Mij ´Nederland´, Amsterdam | ||
| Homeport | Amsterdam | ||
| Date of attack | 9 Aug, 1942 | Nationality:  Dutch | |
| Fate | Sunk by U-752 (Karl-Ernst Schroeter) | ||
| Position | 04.45N, 18W - Grid ET 7385 - See location on a map - | ||
| Complement | 85 (69 dead and 16 survivors). | ||
| Convoy | |||
| Route | New York (1 Jul) - South Africa - Alexandria | ||
| Cargo | Military cargo, including locomotives, trucks, aircraft, coal and supplies | ||
| History | Built as German Cassel for Hamburg-Amerika Linie (Hapag), Hamburg. On 10 May, 1940, seized by Netherlands in Sourabaya and renamed Mendanau. | ||
| Notes on loss | At 21.13 hours on 9 Aug, 1942, the Mendanau was hit on the port side by two torpedoes from U-752 almost simultaneously. The ship immediately took on a heavy list, which prevented the lifeboats from being lowered. The first torpedo struck in the engineroom and the second in the boilerroom. The explosion destroyed the engines and killed all men on watch below. When the ship sank after three minutes, a motorboat floated free and was boarded by 16 white men, while 35 Lascarians rescued themselves on rafts. The Lascarians were told that the motorboat could only take on 16 men and then left. Later, the U-boat took three men from the motorboat as prisoner. On 15 August, it arrived in Robertsport, Liberia, while the men on the rafts were never seen again, but the empty rafts were later sighted a few times. | ||
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