Crossing over history
A sea story mixed in with a little nautical/naval history for the discerning reader...
In the beginning…
Well it was many years ago… back in the autumn of ‘09 that the boat on which I worked was making a run out to a production platform in the Ship Shoal area just off the coast of south Louisiana. Our job was to deliver a crane to the platform. It wasn’t a far trip, 55ish miles southwest of Port Fourchon LA, maybe 6 hours or so from the dock. The weather was nice and we made good time.
After getting to the platform and unloading the crane, we were just riding around the area waiting for the dispatcher on the platform to tell us what to do next.
During that down time we came across a leatherback sea turtle chowing down on a Portuguese man-o-war, which is kinda like a jellyfish (but isn't one according to the marine biologist nerds) with this inflatable bubble thing on top of their head, or whatever you call the top part of a jellyfish like thing.
I didn’t realize it at the time but those turtles love jellyfish, especially the Portuguese man-o-war but to me it seems like the poison would mess up their stomach or something, you know… like when you get the volcano/atomic level hot wings because they’re so good even though you know you’re going to pay for it later… those jellyfish like things seem as though they’re the sea turtle equivalent of volcano/atomic level hot wings.
It was October so we had the wheel house doors open to let some fresh air in while we motored along after checking out the turtle and we noticed the smell of heavy oil coming from outside.
After a little investigation, we noticed there was a trail on the water and after finding the end of the trail, we noticed it was coming from underwater. Well we decided to call it in to the platform because we didn’t want to be blamed for any oil slicks.
When there is oil in the water, the work boat gets the blame… but there are also a ton of pipelines running all over the Gulf of Mexico and we thought it prudent to notify someone about what we had found just in case there was a leak, it could get fixed. And also so we didn’t get blamed…
Oil in the water…
Now… don’t get upset because there was oil in the vicinity of a sea turtle. Oil is a naturally occurring thing and it just so happens that there is a naturally occurring mechanism in seawater to deal with oil in seawater. Oil naturally seeps from the seafloor all the time, all over the world. It even happens under the ice in the Arctic and the Antartic. It’s just something that happens and there are microbes in seawater that feed on this oil. So yes there is oil coming from this wreck but since there is oil seeping from the ground, there is already a natural resource that removes the oil from the seawater. It’s just science.
Anyhoo…
The response we got from the dispatcher on the platform was interesting, at least to me it was. The dispatcher informed us that they would send a helo out to check the slick just to be sure, but that it was most likely from the wreck of the SS Gallagher, which was torpedoed back in WW2.
Well being that I’m somewhat of a maritime-engineering-naval history nerd, I thought that was one of the coolest things that I heard in a long while…
Well I got our GPS coordinates and plotted them out on the chart (the map) and sure enough, there was a wreck located at those coordinates on the chart. We were floating a little over 100 feet above a wrecked tanker.
When we got back into cell service, I started digging into the history a little and it didn’t seem like there was ever much written about this event, unlike the tankers that were sunk near the Atlantic coast during WW2. I have to wonder if that was for security purposes or was it because the area was, and still is, pretty rural?
People saw the ships being attacked, saw the gun fire from U-boat deck guns, some folks reported seeing the U-boats themselves, and people saw the ships burning off the Atlantic coast. Dead mariners washed up on the popular beaches as well so it makes sense that there would be more information about the Atlantic coast wrecks since the attacks were in the news papers, but there is very little about the Gallagher. I guess since the gulf coast is much less populated and the coast of Louisiana is certainly not a travel destination for most vacationers, far fewer people would’ve heard about this incident, in fact there were only a handful of U-boat attacks in the Gulf during WW2 anyway.
But there is some information out there about the ship and one of the best sources is from the book “Ships of the Esso fleet in WW2”, published by the Esso oil complany themselves. This book tells the story of the Gallagher as well as many others and it is where I’ve gotten most of the information for this post/essay/blog/article/whatever-these-are-called…
So about the ship…
The SS RW Gallagher was a tanker built in 1938, for the Esso Oil Corporation. She was built at the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Sparrows Point yard in Baltimore Maryland. Laid down in January of 1937, she was launched a little over a year later in January of 1938. The SS designation indicates that she was a Steam Ship as opposed to MV, MS, or MT, which means Motor Vessel, Motor Ship, or Motor Tanker respectively. This MV,S, or T designation indicating that the vessel is engine driven.
As tankers went at the time, she was the top of the line and was built for the coast wise oil trade through tropical waters and she mostly sailed the Caribbean as well as the Gulf of Mexico, though she would’ve been capable of sailing anywhere she was needed.
The ship was 463 feet long overall, 64 feet wide, and had a draft of 35 feet. Draft being how deep the vessel sits in the water when loaded. Not a large ship by the standards of the day, but more of a medium sized vessel. Today she would be considered a small tanker and would be used for lightering operations, if even used at all.
Her two boilers and one turbine could push her along at a max of 13 knots, or about 15ish MPH. She was short and thick, wasn’t fast or pretty but she got the job done.
If you want to read about steam propulsion then check out my post, “A Primer on Marine Propulsion Part 2”
At the time, steam turbines were kind of an advance in marine propulsion technology for these vessels. Since these ships were slow no matter what kind of engine propelled them, the owners were reluctant to change with the times unless a big savings in operational costs could be realized. Tankers with reciprocating engines were still being built at this time but with steam technology as well as steam turbine manufacturing and large reduction gear manufacturing technology increasing, turbines became more cost effective over the long haul. Large diesel engines were still kind of a new technology at this time and American businesses typically stay away from the latest and greatest technologies and instead kept with what has proven most efficient, cost effective, and reliable over time, unless the American business is building and selling the latest technology. Business is all about the Benjamin’s.
Underway…
The Gallagher left Baytown TX on 11 July 1942 with a load of over 80,000 barrels of fuel oil, bound for Port Everglades, FL. I’ve read that she was carrying Number 6 fuel oil for the Navy, which is what was used at the time to fuel steam powered ships.
Most combat related naval vessels at the time were steam turbine powered and those boilers burned heavy fuel oil. The Gallagher carrying heavy fuel oil kinda fits with the video of oil seeping from the wreck. Number 6 fuel oil is very thick, almost like tar and must be heated to over 200 degrees before it can be pumped. The oil seeping from the hull comes out in little globs and has a very heavy oil smell on the surface, so it would seem accurate that she was carrying heavy fuel oil.
Lighter fuel oils, like number 2 fuel oil (kerosene, diesel fuel, and home heating oil are considered a number 2 fuel oil), would leak out at a faster rate.
Sailing along the shipping channel from Baytown towards Florida in July the seas would’ve been flat calm with little to no wind and it would’ve been hot. On the early morning of the 13th, the Gallagher was steaming along all fat, dumb, and happy under the command of Captain Aage Peterson, approximately 80 miles from the mouth of the Mississippi River. She was just out there doing her thing and minding her own bidness when around 0120, U-67 of the Kriegsmarine, under the command of Korvettenkapitän (which means something in German) Gunther Muller-Stockheim, ruined Captain Peterson’s and his crew’s morning when he launched two torpedoes towards the Gallagher from a range of 600 meters, both of which hit the starboard side of the ship, one in the vicinity of the starboard number 3 cargo tank and the other hit the cargo pump room.
Number 3 cargo tank would’ve been towards the forward part of the ship, closer to the forward deck house and bridge. The cargo pump room would’ve been further aft on the ship but forward of the after deck house structure and engine room.
The two torpedo hits caused flooding of the pump room and caused the cargo of fuel oil to catch fire and because both hits were to the starboard side of the vessel, she started to develop a list, which quickly grew to about 30 degrees but seemed to stay at that angle for a while.
When the torpedoes hit, communication was lost between the bridge and the engine room and the ship lost power. The engineer on watch reported that the power went out because of a short in the electrical system, which I’m assuming opened the generator breaker and blacked out the vessel. After losing power, the engineer shut down the engine and ordered the two engine room crew members out of the engine room.
Even without Captain Peterson giving orders, the crew would’ve known what to do since what just happened must’ve been fairly obvious. Several members of the crew had been on ships that had been previously torpedoed and ships being sunk by submarines was a common thing off the American coast during 1942.
With the ship on fire and leaning 30 degrees, the men started getting lifeboats and liferafts ready to launch, but only one of the four lifeboats and one life raft was able to be launched. The others being damaged in the attack.
There was no power so there was no way to fight the fires on deck. The men knew that they had to get off that ship before she rolled completely over or the fire got worse.
Without being directed, the men launched the life boats and abandoned ship. Those not able to get in a life boat or raft simply jumped off the ship and into the water.
Captain Peterson remained on the ship for a good 40 minutes or so, waiting to make sure that his guys got off the ship and to see if there was something that could be done to save the vessel. At approximately 0220, the ship started to roll over and the good captain decided that it was time to bailout and he jumped off the ship.
The Coast Guard cutter USCGC Boutwell WSC130 responded to the scene and had all the survivors recovered within an hour after the incident happened. They recovered the men in the water, the lifeboats and the life rafts and then continued to search for survivors, with Captain Peterson being pulled from the water and being the last man recovered.
Three of the injured were loaded onto a Coast Guard PH-2 and flown to Lake Pontchatrain where they were loaded onto another Coast Guard boat for transport to the Mariner Hospital in New Orleans. Two of these three men died of their wounds within a couple of days of arriving at the hospital.
The rest of the survivor were taken to New Orleans by the Boutwell and By 1915 hours, 7:15 PM, the rest of the survivors had arrived.
Shortly after Captain Peterson jumped from the ship, she rolled completely over but continued to float for several more hours. She finally sank at 0530 and came to rest completely upside down on the bottom at about a 140 foot depth.
In all, there were 42 survivors: 31 crew and 11 naval armed guards, but there were 9 men lost to this event; 2 at the hospital and 7 who were never accounted for and presumed lost in the event.
Two of the survivors from the Gallagher were crew members of tankers that were previously sunk and two of the survivors of the attack on the Gallagher would later be killed when their tankers were attacked, one of the men killed was the engineer I previosuly mentioned. His name was Tenant Fleming and he died on 10 June 1943 when the tanker Esso Gettysburg was sunk.
Several other crew members were involved in further sinkings as well but survived.
Conclusion
We don’t always think about mariners since they pretty much stay out of sight but with every major war, civilian mariners are called to stand into danger and sometimes without any cover from the Navy. There are no victory parades for these men and there are no awards.
During WW2, somewhere between 8,000-12,000 merchant mariners were lost or 4% of the services total number of men. That’s a higher percentage than the Marine Corps lost during the war. I’ve read stories where young men left the merchant marine to join the US Army because it was more safe than sailing on slow ships.
But it’s always been that way. Ships, as methods of commerce for maritime nations are naturally going to be targeted and that’s just the way it is. It’s not personal, it’s just business…
When we passed over the wreck, I got excited of course because it was new discovery for me, a new experieince.
But I also became a little somber. I knew that men had died at this spot on the map, even before reading about the loss of life. I knew that men, not much different than I, had died at this spot because that’s just what happens when a ship carrying flammable liquid is hit with several hundred pounds of explosives.
Rarely did these events happen where no one was injured. There are many instances where the ships were lost with all hands… no survivors. We can shout “ITS NOT FAIR!!” but in the end, it’s just the way it goes.
As I write this, I’m thinking about the German crew. What was their reaction to their success? I would assume they were undoubtedly excited at first until reality set in, until they realized what they had done to other men who were not much different from themselves.
In July of 1943, U-67 would be sunk by an Avenger torpedo bomber, in the Atlantic. Out of 51 men on board, only 3 would survive. Usually no one survives from a sinking submarine. The men who sunk that U-boat most likely felt the same… initially excited and then remorseful at what they had done to other men who were likely no different then them.
And so it goes, the same as its always been and will always be until Jesus comes back to set everyone straight. As we inch closer to world wide conflict, men will again be called to inflict pain and suffering on others who are most likely not much different than they. We will shout in anger at an enemy and we will cry out in sadness at our losses and in the end, only those who send men to harm and destroy other men will cheer out in victory.
Its just the way it goes.
Thanks for following along. I hope that you have a blessed evening. Please feel free to like, comment, share, or subscribe.
Fair Winds and Following Seas,
Nate
Very engaging story, a pleasure to read!
My grandfathers uncle was a merchant mariner from the 30's till his death in 1956. He was at or near Pearl Harbor at the time of that attack. I have often wondered what the war was like for him. Thanks for a little insight!