RMS Ascania (1923)

RMS Ascania was a Cunard Line ocean liner, the fifth of the company's six A-class liners. Armstrong Whitworth Shipbuilders launched her at its yard in Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 20 December 1923, but cost overruns delayed her completion until May 1925. She then sailed between London, Southampton, Quebec and Montreal, switching to Halifax and New York in winter, and in December 1934 she rescued the crew of the sinking cargo ship Unsworth in mid-Atlantic. She ran aground in the St. Lawrence River near Bic Island in July 1938 and was refloated and repaired. In the Second World War she served as the armed merchant cruiser HMS Ascania, then as a troopship and a Landing Ship Infantry at Sicily, Anzio and the south of France. Refitted in 1949 for 200 first class and 500 tourist class passengers, she retired in December 1956, and her bell is now on display at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax.