The RMS Tilawa was a passenger cargo ship built at Hebburn by Hawthorn Leslie & Co Ltd for the British India Steam Navigation Co Ltd. The ship was launched on the 20th February, 1924[1], by Elsie Mackay. The ship was lost during the Second World War. On the 23rd November 1942 the Tilawa was torpedoed and sunk by Japanese submarine I17. Of the 958 people on board, 252 passengers and 28 crew were lost; 678 of the survivors were rescued from the Indian Ocean by HMS Birmingham.[2]