E&A Line

Later an associate of P&O Company

 This line, founded in 1872, had a long relationship particularly with the Queensland (originally Colonial) Government through its Singapore-Brisbane-Sydney service. Its vessel Eastern carried Australian Expeditionary Force troops to Rabaul in 1914.

The following ships were owned by the company at the start of the Second World War:

Ship

Built

Gross Tons

In Service

Tanda ? 6956 1924-1944
Nellore ? 6856 1929-1944
Nankin ? 6069 1931-1942

All were lost. Nankin on 5 May 1942 was shelled and captured by the German surface raider vessel Thor and later lost by sabotage in Yokohama harbour. Nellore was torpedoed in the Indian Ocean on 30 June 1944, its forty-seven survivors escaping in a lifeboat which was washed up twenty eight days later on Madagascar, 2500 miles from the sinking. Tanda was torpedoed by a submarine off the Indian coast on 6 July 1944.