British Loyalty

The British Loyalty is a British motor tanker of 6,993 tons, completed in 1928 by the Palmers shipyard in Jarrow for British Tanker Co., with London as its port of registry. On 30/05/1942 she was torpedoed by a Japanese midget submarine at Diego Suarez (Madagascar) and went to the bottom, with the death of five crew members and a gunner. Refloated in December 1942, she was towed to Addu in October 1943 and became a floating oil storage hulk.

She supplied the RAF base at Gan during the Second World War. On 09/03/1944, the German submarine U-183 fired a torpedo through a gap in the net across the Gan Channel. The hull, anchored near Vilingili, had its engine room destroyed, but counter-flooding prevented her from sinking, and no deaths are recorded. On board were 6,417 tons of fuel oil, motor spirit and some coal. After the attack she stayed anchored in the lagoon for about two years as a storage hulk, and on 15 January 1946 she was deliberately scuttled in the lagoon, off Maradhoo.

The propeller had four blades of about 2 m each. The length of the hull is given as 134 m or 140 m, depending on the record. On one reported dive, hundreds of yellow snapper swarmed over the Sulzer engine in the open engine room. The site can be dived throughout the year, and from January to April it tends to be calmer.