This is the best known photograph of the British Drummer, seen here entering Swansea docks. She does not have the classic appearence of a BP ship and, at 5070 DWT, was smaller than anything the company was then building when they bought her from the Ministry for War Transport in May 1946. She had been built for the Ministry by J. L. Thompson & Sons Ltd., Sunderland, (Yard No. 637) and was completed as the Empire Ensign in March 1945, managed by the BTC. 343°½' LOA, Breadth 48'4", powered by a 3-cyl 2 S.C.S.A. oil engine manufactured by William Doxford & Sons Ltd., Sunderland, developing 2,250 bhp and geared to a single shaft. She was renamed British Drummer by the company when she was refitted following her purchase and traded uneventfully until she was sold to Pedersen & Blystad, Norway, on the 13th November 1957, who renamed her Anella. The following year she was sold again, this time to Bucha Godager & Co., Oslo, who renamed her Norse Commander. She was laid up in Singapore in September 1966 and scrapped there shortly afterwards. |