SS Empire Admiral
World War II merchant ship of the United Kingdom
SS Empire Admiral was a 7,842 ton steamship which was built in 1945 for the Ministry of War Transport (MoWT), she was sold in 1947 becoming Peter Dal, and sold again in 1951 and renamed Benledi. In 1953 she was sold to Bahamas and renamed Andros Tommeno, being resold later that year to Liberia. In 1966 she was resold and renamed Unique Carrier, serving until 1969 when she was scrapped in Taiwan.
History
Empire Admiral was built by Vickers-Armstrongs Ltd, Barrow in Furness for the Ministry of War Transport and launched on 26 March 1945, being completed the following August. She was managed by H Hogarth & Sons initially, with management passing to A Weir & Co, London in 1946. In 1947, Empire Admiral was sold to A Weir & Co and renamed Peter Dal. On 21 October 1949, an onboard explosion killed one crew member and injured two others. Peter Dal was only slightly damaged. In 1950, Peter Dal was sold to W Thompson & Co, Edinburgh who traded as Ben Line, and was renamed Benledi. On 24 February 1950, Benledi caught fire in the Mediterranean east of Malta.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “SS Empire Admiral” as world War II merchant ship of the United Kingdom. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as world War II merchant ship of the United Kingdom. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 15, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7393541. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1945, 1947, 1951 and 1953.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “SS Empire Admiral”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow SS Empire Admiral primary sources, SS Empire Admiral archive and Empire research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “SS Empire Admiral”?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “SS Empire Admiral” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.