HMS Otranto was an armed merchant cruiser requisitioned by the British Admiralty when World War I began in 1914. Built before the war for the UK–Australia run as SS Otranto, she was primarily used in the war to search for German commerce raiders. She played small roles in the Battle of Coronel in November 1914 when the German East Asia Squadron destroyed the British squadron searching for it and in the Battle of the Falklands the following month when a British squadron annihilated the Germans in turn. Apart from brief refits in the UK, Canada and Australia, she remained on this duty until early 1918 when she became a troop ship. During a severe storm off the Isle of Islay in late 1918, she accidentally collided with another troop ship, HMS Kashmir (1915) and was forced ashore by the storm, killing 470 passengers, mainly American soldiers, and crewmen. Description Otranto had an overall length of , a beam of , and a moulded depth of . She had tonnages of and . The ship was powered with a pair of four-cylinder quadruple-expansion steam engines, each driving one propeller. The engines had a total power of and gave Otranto a top speed of . The ship had a capacity of 235 first-class, 186 second-class and 696 third-class passengers. By 1913 Otranto was equipped for wireless telegraphy, operating on the 300 and 600 metre wavelengths. Her call sign was MOD. Construction Otranto, named after the Strait of Otranto between Italy and Albania, was built by Workman, Clark and Company at its Belfast shipyard as yard number 278. She was built for the Orient Steam Navigation Company's England to Australia run. The first attempt to launch the ship failed on 23 March 1909 as the tallow used to lubricate the slipway had frozen and Otranto ground to a halt after sliding only . Attempts to persuade her to resume her progress with hydraulic jacks failed and the slipway had to be partially rebuilt before she was successfully launched four days later. She was completed on 20 July and departed London on her maiden voyage to Brisbane, Australia, on 1 October. Passenger service Otranto had made two round-trips to Australia by January 1910, and then made a 17-day cruise in the Mediterranean. The arrival of the British mails was always important to Australia, and the installation of wireless telegraphy equipment, even more so. It