Augusto de Castilho

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john sefton
Posts: 1816
Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2009 1:59 pm

Augusto de Castilho

Post by john sefton » Mon Apr 19, 2010 7:20 pm

AUGUSTO DE CASTILHO. (Ex "ELITE") Trawler built by Cochrane at Selby in 19O9. On loan to the Portugese Navy as an armed mine
sweeper. Fought the U-Boat 139 on October 14th 1918 and was lost in this gallant action.

Log Book January 1972

Cape Verde Is SG404
Attachments
SG404
SG404

aukepalmhof
Posts: 7771
Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2009 1:28 am

Re: Augusto de Castilho

Post by aukepalmhof » Tue Apr 20, 2010 12:23 am

Built as trawler under yard No 453 by Cochrane & Sons, Selby for the Parceria Geral de Pescarias (Bensaude & Co.), Lisbon.
22 April 1090 launched as the ELITE.
Tonnage 487 gross, dim. 48.8 (lpp) x 8.2m.
One triple expansion steam engine, 704hp, speed 12 knots.
July 1909 delivered.

She was the first Portuguese trawler fishing for cod.

13 June 1916 requisition by the Portuguese Navy as mine layer/patrol vessel, renamed AUGUSTO DE CASTILHO.
Armament?

Her first action was on 23 March 1918 when under command of the Lieutenant Augusto de Almeida when she escorted the steamer LOANDA from Lisbon to Funchal when she sighted a enemy submarine and attacked, the submarine dived immediately.
21 August 1918 under command of Lieutenant Fernando de Oliveira Pinto off the coast of Cape Raso she attacked an enemy submarine which disappeared very quickly.

08 October 1918 under command of Lieutenant Carvalho Araújo with on board a crew of 42 she sailed from Lisbon as escort of the steamer BEIRA bound for Madeira where she arrived on 11 October.
She was put in quarantine off Lazareto due that in Lisbon an epidemic of pneumonia raged.
She was assigned to escort the steam ship SAN MIGUEL with 206 people on board from Ponta Delgada, Azores.
13 October 1918 at sunset the two ships sailed from Ponta Delgada with a speed of around 9 knots at 06.15 a.m. the next day about 100 miles sw of the Azores the first shots were heard. The German submarine U-139 under command of Lothar von Arnauld de la Periére commenced shelling the SAN MIGUEL. To protect the steamer first smoke shells were fired by the AUGUSTO DE CASTILHO, then she attacked the U-139, she received some casualties on deck, but the steam ship escaped.
After a two hours battle, her ammunition was exhausted and her engine was damaged and stopped, the ship surrendered.
By the last shot fired by the submarine Lieutenant Carvalho Araújo was killed.

The order was given to abandon the ship by the midshipman Armando Ferraz, and 36 men left the ship in a lifeboat, while 12 men left on a raft, the German allowed this men back on board to get a lifeboat, thereafter the AUGUSTO DE CASTILHO was sunk by the crew of the German submarine, taken with her the body’s of the killed crew including the commander wrapped in the Portuguese flag.

The lifeboat with the 36 men on board reached after forty-eight hours the Santa Maria Island with 35 survivors, one of the wounded died during the voyage, and was put overboard.
The other boat reached Sao Miguel and the men landed on the tip of that island on 20 October.

Source: Register of Merchant Ships Completed in 1909. http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/NRP_August ... lho_(1915)

D. v. Nieuwenhuijzen
Posts: 871
Joined: Fri Sep 24, 2010 7:46 pm

Re: Augusto de Castilho

Post by D. v. Nieuwenhuijzen » Mon Mar 04, 2019 7:18 pm

AUGUSTO DE CASTILHO
Armament 1-65 mm. and 1-47 mm. Hotchkiss guns.
Attachments
Augusto-Castilho.10.jpg

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