The SS Florian was an Ellerman Lines cargo steamship constructed by William Gray & Company at their West Hartlepool yard, launched on 26 January 1940 and completed by April of the same year. She measured a registered length of 345.7 feet (105.4 meters), with a beam of 50.1 feet (15.3 meters) and a depth of 20.7 feet (6.3 meters). Her gross register tonnage was 3,174 GRT, and her net register tonnage was 1,486 NRT. The vessel was powered by a single screw driven by a combination of a steam triple expansion engine and a Bauer-Wach low-pressure exhaust steam turbine, which utilized exhaust from the piston engine. This dual-engine setup, rated at 606 NHP, enabled her to achieve a speed of approximately 13 knots. In service, SS Florian initially operated in the Mediterranean, departing on her maiden voyage from Middlesbrough on 17 April 1940, heading through Hull, Southend, Gibraltar, and Malta, and visiting ports in Egypt, Palestine, and Cyprus before returning to Liverpool. During her early wartime operations, she mostly sailed within convoys, but after France's capitulation in June 1940, she was reassigned to transatlantic routes. She crossed the Atlantic from Liverpool to New York, arriving on 16 July 1940, and completed two round-trip convoy voyages between New York and the UK, participating in HX convoys HX 61 and HX 75. Tragically, SS Florian's service ended during the Battle of the Atlantic. On 19 January 1941, she was attacked by the German U-boat U-94. After being chased and torpedoed amidships at 0042 hours on 20 January, she sank stern-first in just 42 seconds approximately 140 nautical miles west-southwest of the Faroe Islands. The sinking resulted in the loss of all 42 crew members and her two DEMS gunners. Her sinking marked her as one of the many vessels lost in the intense maritime conflict of World War II, highlighting her brief but active wartime service.

This description has been generated using GPT-4.1-NANO based on the Vessel's wikidata information and then modified by ShipIndex.org staff.