The passenger steamer Tortona was built by Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson at Wallsend, Newcastle-on-Tyne, England in 1909. The 450' long ship was launched on Aug. 18, 1909 and completed that October. She was built for the Cairn-Thompson Line and used between the U.K., Canada and ports in Italy. In 1911 the passenger ships of the line were sold to Cunard and Tortona was renamed Ausonia. She was put the on the Liverpool-Southampton-Quebec and Montreal route and with the exception of several voyages for the Anchor Line from Glasgow to New York, she remained on this route until the Great War.

Ausonia was taken up for war service and used as a troopship as early as 1915, but I have not been able to narrow down the actual dates of service. Her first encounter with a German submarine occurred on June 11, 1917 when SMS U-55 hit her in the stern with a torpedo, the attack killed one crewman, but Ausonia was towed to port and repaired. She would have one more encounter with a U-boat before the war was over, it would be her last.

On May 30, 1918 Ausonia was en route from Liverpool to New York in ballast when about 600 miles west by south of Fastnet, Kapitänleutnant Ernst Hashagen and his SMS U-62 fired a torpedo into the engine room of the ship sending her to the bottom. Hashagen said after the war that he was en route to the Azores, but had learned how to safely attack such ships. Because of convoys and escorts the danger to a submarine had grown, and after years of war the Allies were getting better at sinking their underwater adversaries.

Hashagen moved out into the Atlantic to a point where the convoy had been dispersed to try and pick off single, unescorted ships. Since mid May he had sunk six ships and would sink two more before the war would end. By the end of the war Hashagen had sunk over 130,000 tons of shipping (48 ships), the first ship he sank was the 6,028 ton Norwegian steamer Storstad (the ship that rammed and sank the Empress of Ireland on May 29, 1914) and the 13,000 ton armed merchant cruiser (ex Orient Line passenger steamer) HMS Orama, Ausonia was the third largest ship sunk by Hashagen.

There were no passengers on the ship at the time of the attack, but there were about 130 crew, including one woman, Theresa Edgar, the stewardess. According to Miss Edgar the U-boat came alongside the lifeboats searching for the master, but Captain R. Capper, had removed his uniform and he was not found by Hashagen or his men. When they (the U-boat men) saw her they shouted "You have a woman with you. Clear away", and with that the encounter with the enemy was over.

Hashagen left the area, but the survivors were in a bit of distress. Hundreds of miles from land and with few provisions the chance of rescue must have seemed slim. During the passing days two of the lifeboats became separated and were never seen or heard from again. The remaining group were discovered by HMS Zennia on June 8, their ordeal was over when they set foot on her decks. The loss of Ausonia cost the lives of forty-four of her crew, one, Matthew Robinson a 17 year old Scullion suffered "great agony" according to Miss Edgar. He was standing above where the torpedo hit and the explosion broke both of his ankles and blew a large hole in the deck between him and another lad, whose ankles were also broken. In great pain Robinson still had his wits about him and he laid a plank across the hole so that his friend could cross over to safety saving the boys life. Robinson made it into the lifeboat and was picked up with the others, but his suffering continued even after they were landed and he died two days later.