Societe Generale de Transports Maritimes a Vapeur (SGTM) was established in Marseilles and Paris in March, 1865 by Paulin Talabot (1799-1885) primarily to carry iron ore from Bone (Algeria) to Marseille and Sete, as well as a passenger service linking Marseille, Algiers and Oran. A monthly service to Brazil was begun in September 1867 for mail, passenger and cargo services via North African and Spanish ports to the South American ports of Rio de Janeiro, Santos, Montevideo and Buenos Aires. The subsidiary company Compagnie de Navigation France-Amerique was set up in 1907, and eight years later a monthly service to the Caribbean began and was later extended to U.S. Gulf ports.

The black hulls and red and black funnels of a large fleet of thirty liners and cargo ships ran for exactly one hundred years until they were taken over by Chargeurs Reunis of France in 1965. SGTM was the fourth biggest French shipping company, after French Line, Messageries Maritimes, and Chargeurs Reunis. The French houseflag was a diagonally quartered red, white and blue flag with the letters ‘S’, ‘G’, ‘T’ and ‘M’ in the four quarters. Campana of 10,816 grt was the flagship of the fleet when completed by the Neptune yard of Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson Ltd. in 1929, but other liners in the fleet of around 8,600 grt included or had included Alsina, Mendoza, Florida, and Valdivia, some of which were built on the Tyne at Wallsend.

CAMPANA

This graceful, twin screw, geared turbine passenger liner was named after a mountainous region in Northern Corsica. She was specially designed for the South American service of SGTM from Marseilles, and had a service speed of 15 knots from six steam turbines  manufactured by the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company of Wallsend. These were arranged in two sets of three turbines of a high pressure turbine, intermediate pressure turbine and low pressure turbine. The turbines were grouped around a common single reduction gear wheel with double helical pinions.

A large ‘midships superstructure of length 233 feet added considerably to the handsome appearance of the liner, together with a fo’c’stle of length 82 feet and a poop of length 50 feet together with a short forward well. The two tall masts and two slightly raked funnels and cruiser stern gave a well balanced profile. She had six decks, named as Boat Deck (A), Promenade Deck (B), Bridge Deck (C), Awning Deck (D), Main Deck (E) and Lower Deck (F). Passenger accommodation was provided for 107 First Class passengers, 152 Second Class passengers, and 230 Third Class passengers in the top five decks, with 816 steerage passengers in the upper ‘tween decks, a total of 1,305 passengers.

Most of the crew were accommodated in the Lower Deck (F), and her dimensions were length overall 536.7 feet, beam of 67 feet, depth of 32.1 with a loaded draft of 23.1 feet. Shecould carry 7,025 tonnes of cargo in three holds forward and three deep ‘tween deck spaces aft (numbers 4,5 and 6) together with number four hold, many spaces being for insulated cargo on the return voyage from South America. There were 288,000 cubic feet for general cargo, and 97,800 cubic feet for insulated cargo. Nine transverse bulkheads to the Awning Deck gave ten compartments in the liner, however the aftermost bulkhead extended only to the Main Deck. A cellular double bottom extended continuously fore and aft and was subdivided into nine compartments for oil fuel, ballast water and fresh water. A further 300 tonnes of fuel oil was carried in a cross bunker at the forward end of the boiler room, to give a total of 1,750 tonnes of fuel oil, and the fore peak and aft peak tanks were available for ballast water.

INTERNAL STRUCTURE and GENERAL EQUIPMENT

The keel was of the flat plate type with overlapping butt connections, and rolling chocks fitted up to the area of the bilge keel. Double angles connected the keel to the girder system, with the rise of the double bottom being eighteen inches. The framing was of the deep frame system with additional strengthening under the ‘midships machinery section. The frames were spaced at 31 feet over most of the length of the ship, but were reduced to 24 feet or 21 feet for the fore and aft peak tanks. The plates of the hull were carried up to the Awning Deck without tumblehome, but at the Bridge Deck this dimension was four inches. The Promenade and Boat Decks were extended by over two feet beyond the normal side of the hull, with brackets under the overhang. All of the decks were of steel and were worked with a camber of eight inches on the moulded breadth, and were supported by two rows of widely spaced pillars in association with the deck girders. The pillars in the holds were of the ‘mast’ type, with solid pillars fitted elsewhere. On Boat Deck, teak decks of 2.5 inch thickness were fitted on top of the steel, and in the ‘tween decks white wood sparring was fitted.

Cargo handling gear consisted of a dozen tubular steel derricks, each of five tonnes capacity mounted on eight derrick posts, plus one of ten tonne capacity stepped on the after side of the foremast to be used for number two hold. Thus, each of the six hatches had a total of ten tonnes of lifting capacity. There were twelve electric winches, three bower anchors, one steam anchor, 300 fathoms of chain cable, and 240 fathoms of steel wire for towing. A windlass was fitted on the fo’c’stle and two capstans at the stern of the vessel, all manufactured by Clarke, Chapman & Co. Ltd of Gateshead. The steering gear was steam driven of the Wilson-Pirrie type, controlled by telemotor from the navigating bridge. A brine refrigerating plant was fitted for use in controlling the temperature of the ‘tween deck spaces, and a steam powered carbon dioxide plant for cooling the provision chambers and the cold cupboards of the First Class Dining Room.

PUBLIC ROOMS

MAIN DECK (E)

Some 96 Third Class passengers were accommodated in two and four berth cabins, together with the Third Class Dining Room, Smoking Room and Ladies’ Room. A full width mail room, baggage rooms, store rooms and accommodation for engine and boiler room ratings were on this deck. A further 134 Third Class passengers were accommodated in number three upper ‘tween deck, while 84 stewards were also accommodated forward of the boiler casing and aft on this deck.

AWNING DECK (D)

The 152 Second Class passengers were accommodated on this deck in two, four and six berth cabins. The forward part of the deck provided sheltered promenade space for the Third Class passengers, and there was also a galley, pantries and two hospitals, a dispensary and operating theatre. The entrance for the steerage passengers was under the fo’c’stle on this deck, which had accommodation for twenty seamen and two boatswains. Second Class accommodation was comparable with First Class, the finish being less elaborate. The Second Class Dining Room on Bridge Deck had seating for 86 passengers and was panelled in polished American birch covered with decoration, and a wide stairway in polished hardwood led directly from this room to the second class corridor below. The Second Class Smoking Room on Bridge Deck was panelled in polished oak with a painted frieze, with polished oak chairs and tables, and the windows of the room were divided horizontally to give a more pleasing effect.

BRIDGE DECK

The outstanding feature of ‘C’ Deck was the large deckhouse measuring 230 feet by 57 feet for the First Class Passengers, with the after part of the deck forming the SecondClass Dining Room and Smoking Room. The First Class passengers were accommodated in staterooms for one, two or three passengers, with a number of them having adjoining bathrooms. The hairdressing shop, barber, maitre d’hotel and three doctors were also accommodated on this deck, together with the imposing First Class Dining Room at the forward end of the deck. The latter was decorated in ‘Provencal’ style with many paintings, murals and wood panelling in evidence. A special feature was a decorative panel in stone representing a fountain in a well known French style. The armchairs, tables, sideboards and serving furniture were of waxed walnut, and a parquetry floor was laid on white pine. Large windows formed the front of this deck, and extended for a distance of twenty feet on both sides.

PROMENADE DECK (B)

A large deckhouse measuring 220 feet by 44 feet accommodated 52 First Class passengers, as well as two ‘Cabines de Luxe’ for two persons decorated in polished sycamore and veined ash wood. The First Class Entrance Lounge, First Class Smoking Room, and Library formed the public rooms, with extensive promenading space at the sides, and a screen of each side extended for 75 feet to protect passengers from inclement weather. The First Class Entrance Lounge extended over two decks and was decorated in Regency style with beautiful carved panelling and curtained windows with arched tops. The main entrance had a wide and imposing stairway in polished hardwood, with a decorative iron balustrade. The room was luxuriously furnished with occasional tables, lounge chairs and sofas in waxed wood and covered with tapestry and silk in the Regency style. A grand piano, a large tapestry on the aft wall and a parquetry floor completed this delightful room. The Library adjoined the Lounge with panels of polished light Canadian birch, and furniture of polished sycamore tables, writing desks, chairs and bookcases built into the walls. A domed ceiling was decorated with a beautiful map of the world. The First Class Smoking Room was in English Georgian style, with mahogany panelled walls, large bay windows on the aft wall and the ornamental doors opened into a verandah café. The very dark mahogany tables, chairs and sofas gave a very refined air to the room.

BOAT DECK (A)

The Children’s playroom was aft and was a very beautiful and airy room with murals illustrating games and panelled yellow and lemon coloured walls. The Master had his dayroom and bedroom forward, with the navigating officers just aft, and the engineering officers accommodated aft of number three trunked hatch and to the side of the boiler and engine casing. Ten lifeboats were carried on each side of Boat Deck in double banked davits, of which two were motorboats. There were also four more lifeboats in double banked davits on top of the poop deck, plus a cutter and a dinghy.

SOUTH AMERICAN and INDOCHINA SERVICE

The bridge of Campana was well equipped with Marconi radar, electric direction finders and later radar was fitted for the long voyages from Marseilles in French ownership. She had barely completed eleven years of service on the South American route with brief calls at Dakar when she found herself in Buenos Aires on the fall of France in June 1940. She was interned by the Argentine Government and her French crew repatriated to France. After three years of lay up, she was renamed as Rio Jachal by the Argentine Government and sent on long voyages to New Orleans and Gulf ports. She was returned to SGTM in 1946 and refitted and renamed Campana to resume her South American service. In 1951, two new big liners of 16,300 grt with accommodation for 1,302 passengers were completed as Provence by Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson Ltd. on the Tyne and as Bretagne by the Penhoet yard at St. Nazaire.

As a consequence of the new SGTM pair entering service, Campana was chartered by Chargeurs Reunis for a service from Marseilles to the Far East French possessions, with accommodation for 105 passengers in First Class, 96 in Second Class, and 56 in Third Class. However, the defeat of French troops at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu on 8th May, 1954 and the Sino-French Peace Treaty of 21st July, 1954 to end the Indo-China War meant that she and other  French liners on the Far East route were surplus to requirements. In June 1955, she was sold to the five Grimaldi brothers of Naples, Aldo, Guido, Luigi, Marco and Ugo, together with the SGTM liner Florida built in 1926 at St. Nazaire for a purchase price of just over $1 million. Florida was renamed Ascania, and Campana was registered under Sicula Oceanica S.A. (Siosa) of Palermo. This company was incorporated on 4th January 1955 for tax reasons away from Naples with an initial capital of one million lire by Luigi Grimaldi, later replaced by Guido Grimaldi, with the capital soon increased to one billion lire. Campana was renamed Irpinia after an extensive refit which gave her a new bow and extended her overall length by three metres. She was now destined for Central American service from Genoa with accommodation for 187 passengers in First Class and 1,034 passengers in Tourist Class.

IRPINIA

She was named after a mountainous area of Southern Italy around forty kilometres east of Naples. She was remeasured at 12,279 grt and now had 22 lifeboats on Boat Deck in double banked davits, with a further eight lifeboats in double banked davits aft. She now had funnel colours of blue with a black top and a large white ‘S’ for Siosa inside the outline of a white circle, and the Grimaldi Siosa houseflag was a blue swallowtail with a white ‘S’ inside the outline of a white circle. She departed from Genoa on her maiden voyage to Central America in early December 1955 with calls at Palermo and Barcelona and arrived at Tenerife on 17th December, sailing on to Guadeloupe, Martinique, Barbados, Trinidad, and La Guaira and the Dominican Republic. The return voyage called at Trinidad, Grenada, Martinique, Dominica, Guadeloupe and Antigua as well as Tenerife. In October 1956, she made a special voyage from Southampton to New York with migrants.

In addition to her Central American line voyages for emigrants and returning travellers, she usually operated two voyages in late winter and early Spring to Halifax and New York from Genoa, Naples and Palermo, and two voyages in late summer and early Autumn to Quebec and Montreal from the same Italian ports. The second of the St. Lawrence voyages would call at Gibraltar on the return voyage, thus spreading the net as wide as possible to cater for all travellers to and from Canada and North America. In the summers of 1959 and 1960, she was chartered by an organisation that brought Hungarian refugees to Genoa to start a new life in Canada on the Irpinia. A short strike by Italian stewards delayed 551 passengers disembarking at Montreal on 18th June 1959, and the last Canadian voyage she made from Halifax to Naples sailed on 16th March 1961 with 274 passengers.

There was a second Grimaldi service to the Venezuelan port of La Guaira that started from Rotterdam and Southampton and called at Santander, La Coruna, Vigo, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, La Guaira, Curacao, Kingston (Jamaica), Vera Cruz, Havana and Fort Lauderdale. This service was primarily to transport Jamaican and West Indian emigrants to London or Southampton to start a new life in the U.K. It was operated by both Irpinia and Ascania ex Florida, and both the Grimaldi services from Genoa and Mediterranean ports and from Southampton and Northern European ports were known collectively as the Grimaldi West Indian services. An example voyage was that of the sailing of Irpinia on 4th September 1958 from Kingston (Jamaica) for London with 362 Jamaicans.

Post-war immigration from Jamaica into the U.K. had started with the arrival of Empire Windrush, the former Monte Rosa of Hamburg-Sud built in 1930, at Tilbury in 1948. It had got into its stride by 1955, when Auriga, Irpinia and Ascania of Grimaldi Brothers were operating in the trade. Emigration from Jamaica was in full flow on Independence Day of 5th August 1962, adopting the black, green and gold flag in the form of a St. Andrews cross. Many other Spanish and Italian shipowners with converted cargo ships were also prominent in the trade e.g. Costa Line with Anna C, the former Southern Prince of Prince Line built in 1929, and Begona and Montserrat, former ‘Victory’ types of Trasatlantica Espanola. Auriga had been purchased by the Grimaldi brothers in 1949 as Ruahine from the New Zealand Shipping Co. Ltd., for whom she had been built by Denny at Dumbarton back in 1909. Jamaica had celebrated three centuries as a British colony in 1955, but dissatisfaction with opportunities at home led many Jamaicans to move permanently to the ‘mother country’. Over one quarter of a million Jamaicans, one tenth of the population, migrated to Britain or the U.S.A. in the 1950s. Prime Minister Norman Manley encouraged the emigration to Britain from 1955, although after independence Jamaicans emigrated in large numbers to the U.S.A. as well as to Britain.

Irpinia was a regular visitor to the port of La Guaira in Venezuela for fifteen years on every voyage to the Caribbean. The port is situated 19 miles to the west of the capital Caracas in Vargas State. It is the chief port of Venezuela along with Puerto Cabello further to the west, and has a population of 275,000 people. It was founded in 1577 by the Spanish and became a fortified, walled city after attacks by British, Dutch and French armadas and buccaneers. Larger ships berth on the inside of the long breakwater, and a wide, central cargo pier at one end of the harbour exports cocoa beans, coffee and tobacco. Irpinia berthed at the Estacion Maritimo with a clear depth of 35 feet of water.

Irpinia completed an extensive rebuild in 1962 at the Adriatico yard at Trieste that gave her a much more modern appearance with a new domed funnel, new navigation mast atop the bridge, an extended and fully enclosed  Promenade Deck, the removal of her foremast and mainmast, rebuilt stern, renovated public rooms, and a new goalpost mast for the operation of the derricks on the forward holds, and only 24 lifeboats. Two new ten cylinder FIAT diesel engines of 16,000 bhp replaced her steam turbines to give a much better service speed of 20 knots. She now had accommodation for 209 passengers in First Class and 972 in Tourist Class and was remeasured at 13,204 grt. The First Class Dining Room was now called the Riviera Room and had a large central serving area and bar in medium brown panelled wood.

During 1963/64, her Central American itinerary from the Mediterranean was from Genoa, Cannes and Barcelona to either Tenerife or Las Palmas, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Barbados and Trinidad and La Guaira. The return voyage also called at Trinidad, Grenada, Martinique, Dominica, Guadeloupe and Antigua as well as Tenerife. She carried Italian, Spanish and Portuguese migrants westbound, and a special passenger sailed on Irpinia from La Guaira on 28th August 1964 for Genoa. This was Archbishop Humberto Quintero, Cardinal Primate of Venezuela to attend the important third session of the Vatican Council in Rome. The Christmas and New Year voyage from Kingston (Jamaica) at the end of 1963 called at Tenerife before sailing north to Lisbon, Vigo, Le Havre and Southampton, where a large number of Jamaican migrants got their first taste of the bitterly cold British weather, with lying snow for well over two months.

Irpinia made three special arrivals on the Canarian island of La Palma between 2nd June 1965 and 10th June 1966. These were cruises from the Venezuelan port of La Guaira organised by Viajes El Teide in the Canaries for migrants from the Canarian islands to attend a very popular fiesta at Santa Cruz de La Palma. The seven main islands of the Canaries each have their own special character, and La Palma is known as the ‘green’ island because it has the most vegetation. In previous generations, many Canarians were forced to emigrate to Venezuela due to volcanic activity in the Canaries, the failure of crops and the impossibility of the islands to sustain much larger populations. This was, of course, before the huge tourist industry started in the Canaries. The Italian liner Surriento, the former Barnett of Grace Line, had carried out these special cruises during the summers of 1963 and 1964, and they were fully booked with Venezuelan people revisiting their ancestral home.

Irpinia continued her line voyages to Central America and was also used for cruising, with seven day Western Mediterranean cruises out of Genoa from $79, or two week cruises to New York or the Canaries from only $134. She became a full time Western Mediterranean cruise ship in 1970 on seven day cruises out of Genoa and calling at Cannes, Barcelona, Palma, Tunis, Malta, Palermo and Capri. She spent the summer of 1975 cruising from Tilbury to the Norwegian fjords including the beautiful Geirangerfjord and to the North Cape. She had docked on her way north to Tilbury from the Mediterranean at Ponta de Rocha in Lisbon in March 1975 for this very successful season of Norwegian cruises.

The full time cruising was about to be withdrawn at the end of the 1976 summer season for lay up, but instead she received a starring role in the film ‘Voyage of the Damned’. She was again given two funnels and with actors James Mason, Faye Dunaway, Oskar Werner, Katherine Ross, Max von Sydow, Lee Grant, Orson Welles and Fernando Rey in starring roles and living onboard. She set out to recreate the voyage of the German liner St. Louis owned by Hapag with 900 Jewish refugees fleeing from Nazi Germany to a new life in Cuba. However, Cuba, America and all of the western European countries would not accept the refugees and they returned to Europe where most of the refugees subsequently met their deaths in the Nazi German gas chambers in their hideous concentration camps. The affair was, in fact, a well planned Nazi propaganda scheme, and the liner returned to Antwerp, where the worried passengers disembarked. The three hour film was shot onboard Irpinia, in Spain and England and won two awards in the 1977 Academy Awards and Golden Globe Awards.

Surprisingly, Irpinia returned to Western Mediterranean seven day cruising after her film role until 1981, when she could no longer get a certificate of seaworthiness in Italy. She was replaced as the Grimaldi cruise ship by the newer Ausonia built in 1957 and which continued cruising for Grimaldi until October 1977 when mounting losses forced her sale. Irpinia was laid up for two years at the Ligurian port of La Spezia before her demise at the hands of Italian acetylene torches in the port from 5th September 1983. She was one of the last liners to be broken up at La Spezia.

A full, diverse and long career of 54 years included her use by the Argentine Government during World War II, and had seen her sail to South America, Central America and North America, the Far East, as well as hundreds of cruises around the Western Mediterranean, a film role, and many arrivals at Southampton with West Indian migrants tarting a new life in the U.K. None of the present day cruise ships will ever have such a long, diverse and interesting career as the French Campana, later the Italian Irpinia.