HMS Manica: От грузового судна к кораблю-воздушному наблюдателю в Первой мировой войне.

HMS Manica was a merchant steamship that was built in England in 1901 and was scrapped in Japan in 1931. She was built as a dry cargo ship but spent the latter part of her career as an oil tanker. She is most notable for her service in the First World War. In 1915 she was converted into the Royal Navy's first kite balloon ship. Later in the war the Navy had her converted into an oiler. The Admiralty sold her back into civilian service in 1920. She was renamed Huntball in 1917 and Phorus in 1920. Her original owner was Bucknall Steamship Lines Ltd, which in 1914 became part of Ellerman Lines and was renamed Ellerman & Bucknall. After the First World War she was owned by Anglo Saxon Petroleum, which is part of Royal Dutch Shell.

In 1900 and 1901 Bucknall Steamship Lines Ltd took delivery of a set of four new sister ships from two shipbuilders in North East England. In 1900 Sir James Laing & Sons Ltd at Sunderland on the River Wear launched Manica on 25 September and Barotse on 22 December. In 1901 Armstrong, Whitworth & Co Ltd at Low Walker on the River Tyne launched Bantu on 16 July and on 12 September. All four ships were named after peoples or places in southern Africa, where Bucknall traded. The four ships were built to almost identical dimensions. Manicas registered length was 109.88 m, her beam was 14.33 m and her depth was 8.63 m. Her tonnages were and T Richardson & Sons of Hartlepool built her engine, which was a three cylinder triple expansion steam engine rated at 530 NHP. Sir James Laing completed Manica on 21 December 1900. At the end of August 1910 Manica docked in Port Adelaide, South Australia. Two members of her crew jumped ship there. One was from Ceylon and the other was African American, which made them "prohibited immigrants" under the White Australia policy. The South Australian authorities held her Master, Francis Potts, responsible. On 22 September he was convicted at Port Adelaide Police Court, fined £100 for each man and charged 20 shillings for court costs. She was manned by Royal Naval Reserve officers and merchant marine reserve crew.

On 16 April Manica reached Lemnos in the Aegean Sea, which was an Allied base for the Gallipoli campaign. She spent the next few days making test flights of her balloon. On various dates Manica directed the fire of Royal Navy battleships including , and
Thereafter, Manicas balloon directed naval bombardments of two field batteries on 28 April, the town of Çanakkale on 30 April and 25 June, a battery of what were described as " guns" on 2 May, four Ottoman batteries on 8 May and a house believed to be an Ottoman military headquarters on 12 May. In August 1915 Manica supported the Landing at Suvla Bay. On 12 August fired a torpedo at her, but it passed under the ship and missed. On 14 August a U boat fired two torpedoes at Manica, but this attack also failed. On 13 July Manica deployed her seaplane and balloon to direct the guns of HMS Severn, which bombarded the town of Pangani. The Germans surrendered the town to British land and naval forces on 23 July. Manica did the same for bombardments of the town of Sadani by the monitor on 26 July and battleship Vengeance on 3 August. In August British forces attacked the coastal town of Bagamoyo. Manicas seaplane and balloon provided artillery observations for bombardments of the town by HMS Talbot on 1 August and Vengeance on 4 August. During the morning Manicas seaplane suffered an engine fault and had to return to the ship. On the morning 16 August, German artillery defending Bagamoyo fired at Manica, but no damage was recorded. On 18 August she deployed her seaplane to observe for Severn to bombard the shore. After Dar es Salaam fell, British and Empire forces took the remaining coast of German East Africa with little or no resistance. The last German coastal resistance was in the swampy Rufiji delta, where Manica and the Rinaldo bombarded a German encampment on 8 September. when he was returning to the ship in her liberty boat when he fell between the boat and the ship. The other was an RNAS air mechanic who died on 21 March 1917. On 25 March Manica left Zanzibar. In May 1917 two of her complement died of heat stroke and one died of typhoid fever. All three were buried at sea.

In August 1917 the Admiralty had Manica converted into an oil tanker at Bombay. For her new rôle she was renamed Huntball. on 15 April 1918 the Admiralty bought Huntball from Ellerman and Bucknall. Throughout the 1920s she traded in the Far East, and also to Australia and occasionally New Zealand. In February 1931 Phorus arrived in Nagasaki in Japan. On 3 July that year she arrived in Osaka to be scrapped.