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PORT ATTACK BONUS
SS Esso Montpelier
Between April 26 and May 10, 1943 the American flag tanker Esso Montpelier of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey fleet was one of a convoy of ships anchored at Gibraltar, awaiting orders to sail. She was in command of Captain Lionel E. Crowder and her engineroom was in charge of Chief Engineer James L. Yent.
On the morning of May 8 there was an enemy attack on the port of Gibraltar, within the meaning of the words "attack" and "port" as defined in Ruling No. 24, under Decision No. 2A by the Maritime War Emergency Board, whose decisions were accepted as
binding by the tanker's owners. Accordingly, every member of the merchant crew of the Esso Montpelier was paid a bonus, in the amount prescribed, after receipt by the owners in August of telegraphic authorization from the Board.
The SS Esso Montpelier was built in 1940 by the Federal Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company at Kearny, N. J. Her sisterships were the Esso Bayonne, Esso Bayway, Esso Boston, Esso Houston, and Esso Concord.
A single-screw vessel of 13,100 deadweight tons capacity on international summer draft of 28 feet, 1/2 inch, she has an overall length of 450 feet and a length between perpendiculars of 440 feet; her moulded breadth is 66 feet, 6 inches, and her depth moulded is 34 feet, 6 inches. With a cargo carrying capacity of 105,415 barrels, she has an assigned pumping rate of 6,000 barrels an hour.
Her turbine engine, supplied with steam by two water-tube boilers, develops 3,300 shaft horsepower and gives the Esso Montpelier a classification certified speed of 12.7 knots.
Following her delivery on July 2, 1940, the Esso Montpelier left New York on the 12th for her maiden voyage. Under the command of Captain Olav Olsen, with her engineroom in charge of Chief Engineer John Folk, the tanker proceeded to Baytown and returned to Philadelphia on the 26th with a four-way split cargo totaling 103,337 barrels — comprising three grades of gasoline and Essoheat medium. (The de scriptive word "Essoheat" is one of the family of Esso brand names and signifies oil for heating purposes.)
From July, 1940 to the latter part of April, 1942 when the vessels of the Esso fleet were time chartered to the War Shipping Administration, the Esso Montpelier's performance record — all of it in the Gulf-east coast service — was distinguished by an unusual number of mixed cargoes. All but one of her 38 cargoes transported in this period, covering 22 months, were split — 29 of them four or more ways — and many of the grades represented were brand products.
Carried Many Types of War Fuel
It was not unusual for the Esso Montpelier to take six grades in her tanks — this happened on ten different occasions — and a sampling of these complex loadings stirs the imagination. A good example was the cargo of 104,626 barrels with which she left Baytown on July 25, 1941. This total was made up of solvent naphtha distillate (13,087 barrels) ; Esso aviation gasoline (25,910) ; aviation alkylate blending agent (5,629) ; Esso Ethyl aviation gasoline (26,609) ; and Esso Extra base blend (33,391 barrels) . Of these five grades, two were aviation gasoline so vital to Allied victory, and one — the aviation alkylate blending agent — is a four word epitome of the national wartime 100 octane aviation gasoline program. Yielded by the alkylation process in the Baytown refinery of Humble Oil & Refining Company and transported by the
Esso Montpelier to New York, this particular lot of blending agent was one of many which were used at the New Jersey Works to produce 100 octane aviation gasoline for the victorious air forces of the United Nations all over the world.
Picked Up Six Men in Lifeboat
The Esso Montpelier completed her first voyage under control of the War Shipping Administration by delivering Colombian crude oil to New York, where she arrived on May 28, 1942. She left again on the 30th for Caripito in command of Captain Olsen
and with Chief Engineer Folk in charge of her engineroom. In an interview for this history, Third Mate John D. Hall described an episode of that voyage:
"On June 7, at a point in the Atlantic about 400 miles northeast of Mona Passage, we sighted what we thought at first was a submarine, but which turned out to be a lifeboat with six men in it. We picked up the men, who told us that they were the only survivors of the SS Iltinois of Portland, Oregon, formerly owned by the States Steamship Company. Their vessel, while bound from India to Baltimore, via Cape Town with manganese ore, was torpedoed on June 1 and sank immediately, about 550 miles north
east of Mona Passage. We landed these survivors at Port-of-Spain on June 10."
After three more voyages the Esso Montpelier completed her 1942 schedules by carrying 84,078 barrels of Pool gas oil from Baytown, via New York, to Swansea, Wales.
On November 8, 1942, the Allies landed in North Africa and took Algiers. Two months later, on January 13, 1943, the Esso Montpelier left New York for Oran with 70,148 barrels of special Navy fuel oil consigned to the British Admiralty, with destination on
cargo documents shown as "At sea."
War Incidents
Radio Operator Bernard Ball reported that on this trip the Esso Montpelier was in the vicinity of the position where the City of Flint was torpedoed and sunk, January 25, 1943, on the approaches to the Mediterranean. The United States Maritime Commission cargo ship City of Flint on September 3, 1939 rescued more than two hundred survivors of the torpedoed British passenger liner Athenia. The master of the City of Flint, Captain Joseph A. Gainard, had landed the Athenia survivors, including American refugees, when his vessel sailed for the United Kingdom on October 3, 1939. Six days out of New York the City of Flint was overtaken by the German pocket battleship Deutschland, which placed a prize crew aboard. Unable to break through the British blockade, the Nazis put her successively into Tromso, Norway; Murmansk, Russia; and Haugesund, where the vessel was finally returned to her American master's control by Norway after the German crew had been removed and interned and the American flag
was proudly flown once more.
Second Mate John W. Bozarth related a war incident which occurred when the Esso Montpelier was
at Gibraltar in February, 1943:
"After discharging cargo at Oran we sailed on February 12 for Gibraltar, where we waited nine days for a convoy. About seventy ships were ready to form up when there was a submarine attack in the Straits. A British corvette, about 200 feet long, was passing rapidly by us when she was hit by a torpedo."
After her return to New York from this voyage, the Esso Montpelier made another trip to Algiers with special Navy fuel oil, plus a deck cargo of nine unboxed P-38 (Lightning) Army pursuit planes and nine boxes of wing assemblies. It was on the way back from this mission that the tanker's crew earned a port attack bonus at Gibraltar.
Cargo For Taranto
The next three cargoes of the Esso Montpelier were transported to Glasgow, Avonmouth, and Hull. From the third of these voyages to United Kingdom ports, the Esso Montpelier arrived at New York on September 30, 1943. She was then ordered to load a full cargo of special Navy fuel oil and proceed for discharge in accordance with instructions to be issued by U. S. Navy authorities. These instructions in cluded taking on a deck load of technical devices and gliders for account of the Army and departing for Taranto, Italy. The tanker left New York on October 12, the day before Italy declared war on Germany.
She arrived at Taranto on November 9, and on the 10th Captain Crowder tendered notice of readiness to discharge gliders and bulk cargo to the British Ministry of War Transport. The rest of the deck cargo was unloaded at Alexandria, Egypt, between November 29 and December 2. Under British orders from the time of her arrival at Taranto on November 9 until her return to New York on March 23, 1944, the Esso Montpelier delivered oil from Abadan to Aden and Bizerte.
Also Operated in Pacific
On April 16, 1944, after gas-freeing her tanks at Baltimore and repairing at Newport News, the Esso Montpelier departed from New York for Curacao to begin a long period of Pacific war service, during which she carried four cargoes of fuel oil to Pearl Harbor and Eniwetok. After one coastwise voyage, the Esso Montpelier delivered two more Navy fuel oil cargoes from San Francisco to Pearl Harbor and one each from San Pedro to the Solomons and the Carolines. She then carried Colombian crude oil on a voyage from Cartagena to New York.
On her last completed wartime mission in the Pacific the Esso Montpelier, leaving Curacao on June 22 with 80,034 barrels of special Navy fuel, arrived at Eniwetok July 25. Finally, with another cargo of Navy fuel, she left Aruba on August 25 and was en
route to Pearl Harbor on V-J Day.
The masters of the Esso Montpelier during World War II were Captains Olav Olsen, Charles J. Stadelman, Lester N. Taft, Lionel E. Crowder, Harold I. Cook, Charles F. Stober, and John S. Conaghan.
In the war years her engineroom was in charge of Chief Engineers John Folk, Harold O. Laffitte, Joseph M. Farrell, James L. Yent, Clyde P. Williams, and Ogden E. Power.
The World War II transportation record of the Esso Montpelier was in summary as follows (data on cargoes carried while under British orders are not available) :
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