weather was so adverse that the rescue of survivors took 48 hours. Eventually a breeches buoy was secured. More than 200 passengers and crew were rescued. One source states that 27 people were killed, but another source puts the death toll at 38. First World War When the First World War began in July 1914 Lamport and Holt had a fleet of 36 steamships totalling . By the time of the Armistice of 11 November 1918 it had lost 11 ships including three V-class liners. Lamport and Holt's modern R-class ships, having been built to carry livestock on the hoof from South America, were chartered to carry horses and mules from North America to France. Other Lamport and Holt ships carried horses, vehicles, troops, military mail and other war materials. The Admiralty requisitioned the cargo steamship Canning and used her throughout the war as the observation balloon ship HMS Canning. Between 1915 and 1917 Lamport and Holt took delivery of six new refrigerated cargo ships to carry frozen meat. They were large for their time, each being more than . All six had names beginning with "M". Only three were sisters, but all six became called the "M-class". To mitigate war losses Lamport and Holt took delivery of two new sister ships from the shipbuilder Archibald McMillan and Son of Dumbarton: the Swinburne completed in September 1917 and Sheridan completed in January 1918. In December 1917 Lamport and Holt took over the Nicholas Mihanovich fleet, which operated passenger services on the River Plate and to Asunción and tugs at Buenos Aires and La Plata. Ships lost or damaged At the outbreak of war the German light cruiser was in the Caribbean. On 8 October she intercepted Lamport and Holt's cargo ship Cervantes about southwest of St Paul's Rocks, removed the crew and scuttled the cargo ship. On 26 October 1914 Vandyck was about west of St Paul's Rocks with 200 passengers and a cargo that included about 1,000 tons of frozen meat when Karlsruhe intercepted her. The cruiser transferred Vandycks passengers and crew to the steamship Ascuncion, took much of Vandyck's cargo and on 27 October scuttled Vandyck. Lamport and Holt continued to run its New York – River Plate service, but at reduced frequency. Lamport and Holt survived 1915 without loss. On 9 February 1916 the German merchant raider intercepted and sank the company's cargo ship Horace about northeast