the Polish motor ship 'Batory'

The Batory was a 14,287 grt ship built at the Cantieri Riuniti dell' Adriatico Monfalcone Shipyard in Trieste, Italy, under an arrangement where part of her payment was made in shipments of coal from Poland, and was launched on 8 July 1935. The ship was powered by 2 sets of Burmeister and Wain diesel engines driving 2 screws giving a speed of 18 knots. She began regular service in May 1936 on the Gdynia—New York run and by 1939 she had carried over 30,000 passengers.

Mobilized at the outbreak of WW2, she served as a troop transport and a hospital ship by the Allied Navy for the rest of the war. In 1940 she, along with M/S Chrobry, transported allied troops to Norway. She participated in the evacuation of Dunkirk, taking aboard 2,500 persons. In June to July, she secretly transported much of Britain's gold reserves from Greenock, Scotland to Montreal, Canada for safekeeping. On 4 August 1940 she left Liverpool with convoy WS 2 (Winston's Specials) transporting 480 children to Sydney Australia, under the Children's Overseas Reception Board for their safety until the war was over. She sailed via Cape Town, India, Singapore (where she disembarked 300 troops) and Sydney. The journey had been a happy one, with so much music and laughter that the Batory was dubbed the "Singing Ship" and was the subject of a book by the same name.

She was involved in the invasion of Oran in Algeria in 1942, transported troops to India and the invasions of Sicily and southern France, where she was the flagship of General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, Commander-in-Chief of the French Army. She came under attack several times from the ground and the air, but managed to escape serious damage and was dubbed "the lucky ship", unlike sister ship MS Piłsudski which was sunk in November 1939. Returned to Poland in 1946, she continued her civilian service, until 1971 when she was withdrawn and scrapped.

Length: 160. metres; Beam: 21.6 metres; Draft: 7.5 metres