The passenger/cargo ship Mundra had been in the water just a few days longer than twenty-two years in 1942, having been launched on June 30, 1920 in Glasgow. She was owned by the British India Steam Navigation Company her whole career. Other than normal operations it seems Mundra had a quiet career in the service between the U.K. and her possessions.

In July of 1942 Mundra became a rescue ship of sorts picking up survivors from three sunken ships. Japanese submarines were at work in the Indian Ocean and the British were slow in protecting shipping, unlike in the Atlantic, convoys were not used for the most part. There were several reasons for this, lack of proper escorts and trained crews being the biggest reason, however the threat from Japanese submarines was thought to be rather low.

The Norwegian freighter Goviken was sunk on June 29 by I-20, the survivors (about 40) were picked up by several vessels, but the master, Georg Heldal and four or five crewmen were picked up by the Swedish freighter Eknaren on June 30. To be picked up was good luck, but within a day they would face the same situation again.

Eknaren was located and sunk by I-16 on July 1, so was De Weert, a Dutch freighter, she was sunk by I-18 along with sixty-nine of her crew, survivors from both of these ships were picked up by Mundra. As she made her way to port on July 6, 1942 she was torpedoed by I-18. Her commanding officer, Commander Kiyonori Otani, later was known to have murdered survivors, but in this case I have not found any evidence that such an act occurred, but the fierce gunfire unleashed by Otani caused a number of deaths aboard. In all between 94 and 99 of the crew were killed, all the survivors from De Weert were also lost. The men from Goviken all survived, but some of the Eknaren survivors reportedly were lost.