The cargo-passenger liner Robert E. Lee, seen before the war in her peacetime colors.

The cargo-passenger liner Robert E. Lee was fairly typical of the small liners that earned their living making short runs between U.S. ports on the Gulf of Mexico and destinations throughout the Caribbean.

Like many U.S.-flagged ships, Robert E. Lee found herself pressed into wartime service after Pearl Harbor. Repainted in an overall haze gray scheme to reduce her visibility, in July 1942 she sailed from Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, carrying 270 passengers. Several of those aboard were survivors of other ships torpedoed by German U-Boats. The conditions aboard were appalling. In the heat of the summer, without air conditioning and overcrowded, the ship plodded north into the Gulf of Mexico. There was a shortage of fresh food and water on board, During the night, the ship was obliged to run "blacked out," which necessitated shutting the cabin portholes and with them, all effective ventilation.

With conditions aboard Robert E. Lee deteriorating by the hour, the ship's master, Captain Heath, tried to divert the ship to Tampa, Florida, to put his passengers safely ashore. But when he couldn't obtain a pilot to steer the ship into the harbor, he was forced to turn once again for New Orleans. With PC-566 as escort, Robert E. Lee began steaming west-northwest, on a voyage she would never complete.