SS Appam

SS Appam circa 1915 facing left
SS Appam circa 1915

SS Appam was a British steamship owned by the British and African Steam Navigation Company, that was captured at sea by the German raider SMS Möwe in 1916. The Germans took the ship to port at Hampton Roads in Virginia in the United States where the Supreme Court of the United States decided who would get ownership of the vessel.

History

Appam was built in 1913 by Harland & Wolff in Belfast, United Kingdom. She had a gross tonnage of 7,781 and was 425 feet long with a 37 foot beam.[1]

On 11 January 1916 the ship left Dakar in Senegal for Plymouth, United Kingdom, carrying 168 passengers and 133 crew members. Among the passengers were: Sir Francis Charles Fuller, the British Chief Commissioner to the Ashanti Region; and Sir Edward Marsh Merewether, the Governor of the Leeward Islands. By 15 January communication with the vessel stopped and the vessel was thought to have sunk when an empty lifeboat was spotted.[1]

The case went before the Supreme Court of the United States as The S. S. Appam in 1917, where the court affirmed a lower court's decision to restore the ship to the British owners.[2]

References

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