The Hunsdon (Wreck)

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HUNSDON, cargo steamer. BUILT 1911, SUNK 1918
The 2899-ton Hunsdon steamed out between Kingstown Harbour's two massive piers into Dublin Bay in the dusk of 10 October, 1918, writes Kendall McDonald. The vessel was on the last leg of a voyage in ballast from Le Havre to Belfast, a voyage she was destined not to complete.
For years afterwards, her loss was said to be a direct result of German espionage.
The Hunsdon, formerly the German ship Arnfried, was built in 1911. She was captured soon after the outbreak of war by British forces at Douala, in German West Africa, and was operated for the rest of the war by the Elder Dempster Line for the Ministry of Transport.
Following out of Kingstown about a mile behind the Hunsdon were the Fleet Auxiliary Industry and her escort, the armed trawler Persian Empire.
No one aboard the two Naval ships heard or saw anything of the incident, but Hunsdon was torpedoed and sunk with the loss of one man at 11.30pm by UB92.
She was three-quarters of a mile south-east of Strangford Light Buoy, County Down, just a mile and a half from the two vessels.
What makes the whole matter more mysterious is that the first to report the loss of the Hunsdon was the Persian Empire. She did that as part of a message that the Industry had been torpedoed and sunk and that she had four survivors aboard from her - as well as 30 survivors from the Hunsdon, all of whom she was taking into Belfast.
Oddly, there is no Admiralty record of the time to say that the Industry was either attacked or sunk, and Hunsdon's name was kept on the Fleet list until 1919. And it was not until 1920 that the deaths of six crewmen from the Industry were published as in memoriam notices in their local paper.
No reason for the secrecy was ever given. The Industry was originally HMS Glasgow, and was converted to a naval storeship in 1901.
It was later revealed that she was torpedoed by UB94, commanded by Oberleutnant Haumann, who seems to have been collaborating with UB92 at the time she sank the Hunsdon.