SS Jalabala was the cargo steamship owned by Scindia Steam Navigation Company Ltd., the British Indian shipping company, which was completed in 1927. She was torpedoed and sunk in the Laccadive Sea west of Cape Comorin by the German submarine with the loss of five of her 77 crew members on 11 October 1943 during World War II. Design She was built by Lithgows Ltd., Glasgow in eight months in 1927. She was made of steel sheathed with copper and had two decks. She was lighted by electricity. She had cellular construction of double bottom which was 207 feet long and capacity of 850 tons. Its forpeak was of 85 tons while afterpeak was of 30 tons. Her register tonnage were , , 3345 tons under deck. Her triple expansion steam engine with single shaft and one screw had 3 cylinders with 24" and 40" diameter and had stroke of 65" and 45" generating 398 nominal horsepower. These engines were built by J. G. Kincaid & Co. Ltd., Greenock. She was owned by the Scindia Steam Navigation Company Ltd., Bombay and was registered in port of Bombay. She was 304.9 feet long, 49.0 feet broad and 24.3 feet deep. Career and fate Vithalbhai Patel, then the speaker of the Central Legislative Assembly of British India, performed her ceremonial ship launching in Glasgow on 14 July 1927. The footage of launching was later presented in documentary film India's Struggle for National Shipping (1947). The ship was completed on 12 August 1927. Mahatma Gandhi had written his concerns in Young India on its launch, The ship was used to transport cargo between Karachi, Bombay and Colombo. The ship left from Colombo to Bombay in convoy of nine ships (MB-50) in four columns on 9 October 1943. It had 2000 tons of copra and 1800 tons of general cargo. The convoy was escorted by a minesweeper and an armed trawler . She had the crew of 74 with three gunners and led by Master James George Connor. She was armed with one 3-inch gun and four machine guns. On 11 October, the weather was fine and it was moving at 8 knots. At 16:30 hours, Jalbala was torpedoed by the German submarine when she was in station #11 of convoy. It was hit on the port side abreast bridge and second hatch. She sent distress signals and the crew soon abandoned the ship