Tanker Gulfoil, 1912
Steam tanker Gulfoil. Photo courtesy
Mariner’s Museum, Newport
News, Virginia.
On May 16, 1942, the
tanker Gulfoil left Port Arthur, Texas with a cargo of petroleum
headed for New York City. At 10:41 the same night a torpedo struck the
tanker amidships on the starboard side. The ship reportedly began to list
about forty degrees. As Captain A. Henry Rowe struggled to get on deck, a
second torpedo hit the engine room. Third Mate John Charlton saw the
torpedo seconds before it hit but only had time to shout out a warning
before being knocked off his feet by the explosion. Charlton found Captain
Rowe trying to save what papers he could. The deck was covered with oil and
Charlton tried to grab hold of the captain but was unable to hold on to him
because his hands were slippery. The ship was going down fast and listing
hard to starboard. As the stern went under, Charlton fell overboard and
landed in a life raft. Captain Rowe held on to a rail and went down with
the ship only to reappear on the surface moments later, unconscious. Third
Mate Charlton and two other crew
members found Captain Rowe and hauled him aboard the raft.
Gulfoil sank less
than two minutes after the first torpedo struck and there was no time for
the men to radio for help. Captain Rowe, Third Mate Charlton and
seventeen others floated in two
life rafts for thirty-five hours before finally being picked up on May 18 by
the steamer Benjamin Brewster. Out of a crew of forty, nineteen
survived the attack. A few months later, Benjamin Brewster was
herself sunk by U-67 in the Grand Isle Area.
The Gulfoil was
a 5,188 ton tanker built in 1912. She was one of seven tankers built by the
New York Shipbuilding Company in Cameron, New Jersey for the Gulf Oil
Corporation. The ship was armed with a 4-inch deck gun and two .30 caliber
machine guns that were serviced by a four-man gun crew. Gulfoil had
a keel length of 383 feet and a beam of 51.2 feet. The New York
Shipbuilding Company listed all seven “Gulf” tankers as the “407 foot class”
and all were constructed from the same template. Gulfoil was lost
approximately seventy-five miles southwest of the mouth of the Mississippi
River. The estimated position places the wreck near Block 795-796,
Mississippi Canyon Area.
|
