HMHS Braemar Castle
# HMHS Braemar Castle

SS Braemar Castle was a passenger-cargo steamship, built for Castle Line in 1898, that spent more of her time in British government service than working for her owners. She served both as a troopship and as a hospital ship, prefixed HMT and HMHS respectively, before, during and after the First World War.

She was built in 1898 and originally served as a passenger liner with the Union-Castle Line, sailing from Southampton to South Africa. At the start of the Second Boer War, and from 1909, she served as a troopship and was requisitioned for the British Expeditionary Force in 1914 and in Gallipoli in 1915. Later in 1915, she was converted to a hospital ship, hitting a mine (laid by SM U-73) in the Aegean Sea on 23 November 1916 and being repaired at La Spezia. She continued to serve as a hospital ship, sailing to Murmansk in 1918 and staying until 1920, the last non-Russian ship to leave Archangel. After a brief return to commercial service, Braemar Castle was again requisitioned as a troopship for the peace-keeping force during the Greco-Turkish War. She was sold for demolition in Italy in 1924.

