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SS Elisha Walker
On august 25, 1939, the nineteenth anniversary of her launching, the Elisha Walker, then an Esso tanker, arrived at Galveston for repairs. These completed, she proceeded to Texas City to load and sailed from there on September 2, 1939, the day before the declaration of war in Europe, for Port Everglades, Florida, with 67,610 barrels of fuel oil, her first wartime cargo. Her master was Captain Chester C. Ballard and Chief Engineer Otto W. Sund was in charge of her engineroom.
The vessel made several more coastwise trips, then was sold by the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey to the Panama Transport Company at Montreal on November 17, 1939. At the same time her American crew was replaced.
On her first Atlantic crossing during the war the Elisha Walker left Cartagena on December 6, bound for Le Havre with 67,160 barrels of Colombian crude oil. After her return a Canadian complement was placed on board at New York on February 23, 1940.
The Canadians were sent home when, after one more transatlantic and two coastwise voyages, the Elisha Walker joined the tiedup fleet in the Patuxent River on August 27, 1940.
Brought out of tie-up on November 6, 1940, the Elisha Walker was once more manned by Americans and spent the next ten
months mostly on coastwise voyages, interspersed with four trips from Caripito to Tencriffe with fuel and crude oils. She was time chartered to the U. S. Maritime Commission on August 30, 1941 at Boston. On September 17 she was transferred to British registry and placed in charge of a British crew. These steps were preliminary to her sailing from New York on September 18 on the first of three voyages to the United Kingdom, on which she discharged once at Swansea and twice at Avonmouth.
Through Magellan Strait to Persian Gulf.
September 3, 1942 found the Elislia Walker leaving Curacao with 61,230 barrels of fuel oil. She transited the Panama Canal,
September 11-12, sailed down the west coast of South America and through the Strait of Magellan, and crossed the South
Atlantic to Cape Town, where she arrived October 23. This roundabout route enabled her, once she left the Caribbean, to avoid by a safe distance the danger areas of submarine activity.
Having discharged at Cape Town, the tanker proceeded to Abadan. From that Persian Gulf supply point she carried, December, 1942 to March, 1943, three cargoes of furnace and Diesel oils-to Colombo in Ceylon, Mombasa in East Africa, and Melbourne, Australia. Her next loading port was San Francisco, where, on June 29, 1943, the vessel was transferred from British back to Panamanian registry. With the change of flag an American crew took charge. Captain Arthur H. Lankford became her master, and Chief Engineer William M. Strang was placed in charge of her engineroom. This was her last alteration in crew nationalities she was manned by Americans for the duration of hostilities.
After repairing at San Francisco the Elisha Walker loaded Diesel oil there and sailed for Australia. She discharged at Port
Adelaide and Port Pirie, then called at Fremantle for orders.
Guns Trained on Ship.
Captain Lankford, in an interview tor this history, told of the visit to Fremantle on October 12, 1943:
"The port had just had a submarine scare. When we arrived at 11:30 p.m. all the artillery in the harbor was trained on us. They had picked us up with radar. We were expected, as we had been reported by two passenger planes, but the authorities did not know just when we would arrive and were taking no chances. At' that time we had no orders to send in an 'estimated arrival time'."
There followed two more loadings at Abadan for Fremantle, after which the Elisha Walker was ordered to return to Abadan for a third cargo but was later diverted to Colombo, Ceylon. Reporting an unusual incident which occurred on this voyages. Captain Lankford said:
"At that time German and Japanese submarines and surface raiders were causing considerable trouble in these waters. While in port we were told by the naval authorities about a British vessel which had been captured by a German raider. As aresult of this enemy activity, strict orders had gone out to all merchant vessels to keep away from any other ships.
"We sailed from Fremantle for Abadan on February 10, 1944. At noon on the 12th, when we had gone about 500 miles, we received the instructions diverting us to Colombo and we altered course accordingly.
Mystery Ship.
"That afternoon we sighted the masts of a ship hull down to the west. At first we could not tell in what direction she was traveling. As she came over the horizon, however, we could see that our courses were converging; she was headed east and wewere bound northwest. The stranger's appearance was suspicious. We could see no armament on her and there were no cargo booms on her masts. We thought she might be a disguised raider.
"As the other vessel gave no sign of an intention to avoid us, we changed course about 90 degrees to starboard. To our surprise, she turned to follow us. We turned 65 degrees further to starboard, which made our course roughly east by south. Again the stranger turned to head directly toward us.
"In view of the orders which had been sent to all Allied ships, the other vessel should have been as anxious to avoid the Elisha Walker as we were to stay away from her. Her suspicious behavior and odd appearance forced us to act on the assumption that she was an enemy raider. We decided to open fire on her as a warning, while she was still out of range.
"The Elisha Walker's gun crew, commanded by Lieutenant ( jg ) L. M. McDonnell, was a fine outfit. When they came aboard,
the young bluejackets had recently left boot camp, but as the months went by we saw them shake down into a trained, disciplined crew. When they got the order to open fire, they went into action like veterans.
"The strange vessel was still well beyond our maximum range, but the splashes from our shots, coming directly between the two ships, obscured her and made it look as if we were putting water on her deck. When we had fired six rounds the stranger turned off her course and hove to, broadside on. She was then about three miles away and just out of range.
'In the meantime. Radio Operator William R. Davenport was trying to send a message giving our position and reporting the supposed raider. However, someone was jamming the air. The jamming was so loud that we supposed it was being done by the other ship. After about fifteen minutes of this the air cleared and Davenport got off his message-our position, call letters, and 'RRRR' (raider) . The stranger also sent a message, in code.
"We fired seven more rounds at the other vessel and finally she got under way and ran off. "The anticlimax came when we arrived in Colombo. The authorities there informed us that the mystery ship was a harmless Netherlands vessel. The coded message had stated that the Elisha Walker had mistaken her tor an enemy and was firing on her. We never found out why she had persisted in approaching us."
Leaving Colombo on March 1, 1944, the Elisha Walker proceeded to Trincomalee, Ceylon, loaded a cargo of furnace oil, and returned with it to Colombo. She made three of these trips in March and April.
"At Trincomalee," said Captain Lankford, "was located the biggest British naval base east of Suez after the fall of Singapore.
Here the British had accumulated a large stock of oil. We were helping to move part of it down to Colombo, where it was needed for ship bunkers. Colombo was a very important fueling station."
After discharging the third time at Colombo, the Elisha Walker proceeded to Abadan and transported two more cargoes from
there to Australia. Finally, she crossed the Pacific and returned through the Panama Canal to the Caribbean.
Circumnavigation.
The Elisha Walker's arrival at Balboa on September 18, 1944 marked the end of a circumnavigation of the globe-it had been two years and six days since she sailed from the Canal en route to Cape Town.
The vessel's stay in home waters was short. After only three coastwise voyages she left New York on December 10 with 56,567 barrels of Navy fuel oil which she discharged at Oran. Another Abadan loading followed, and this cargo was also delivered at Oran.
In March, 1945 the Elisha Walker was assigned to the Tripoli-Haifa run, She was commanded by Captain Urban A. Haughn and her engineroom was in charge of Chief Engineer Charles E. Swedburg. In four and a half months she lifted at Tripoli, Lebanon, 32 cargoes totaling two and one-half million barrels of Iraq crude. Thirty-one of these loadings were delivered at Haifa, Palestine, and one at Port Said.
Captain Haughn, in an interview for this history, described the tanker's Tripoli-Haifa service:
"The crude loaded at Tripoli arrives from the famous Iraq oil fields through a pipeline which was built from Kirkuk to Tripoli to supplement the direct line from Kirkuk to Haifa. There is no refinery at Tripoli, so the crude must be carried by tankers to the Haifa terminal of Consolidated Refineries, Ltd.
"Tankers load the refined products at the Haifa docks, but facilities are so crowded that arriving cargoes of crude must be discharged at sea. It is necessary to drop anchor and maneuver alongside a buoy in the sea berth. A submarine hose which is tied to the buoy is then fished up, and discharging proceeds. This can be done only in fair weather. Loading at Tripoli is also done from a sea berth and a similar procedure is followed.
"After discharging at Haifa we always had to dock in the harbor to clean tanks and take on ballast."
August 8-10, 1945 - once more at Abadan - the Elisha Walker loaded her last wartime cargo, which was discharged at Aden.
On V-J Day, September 2, 1945, she was back in the Persian Gulf at the loading port of Ras Tamura.
The six war years had seen this staunch and dependable oil carrier in an unusual variety and range of travel throughout which she maintained excellent efficiency.
The wartime transportation record of the Elisha Walker was in summary as follows:
The SS Elisha Walker was built in 1920 by the Sun Shipbuilding Company at Chester, Pennsylvania. She is a sistersllip of the S. B. Hunt, which became the the Navy oiler USS Flambeau, and the Dean Emery. The Geo. H. Jones, lost June 11, 1942; the I. C. White, lost September 27, 1941; and the Joseph Seep, lost May 25, 1940, were also her sisterships.
A single-screw vessel of 11,365 deadweight tons capacity on international summer draft of 26 feet, 9 3/4 inches, the Elisha
Walker has an overall length of 445 feet, 9 inches, a length between perpendiculars of 430 feet, a moulded breadth of 59 feet, and a depth moulded of 33 feet, 3 inches. With a cargo carrying capacity of 78,220 barrels, she has an assigned pumping rate of 3,500 barrels an hour.
Her triple expansion engine, supplied with steam. by three Scotch boilers, develops 3,000 indicated horsepower and gives her a classification certified speed of 10.4 knots.
The American masters of the Elisha Walker in the war years were Captains Chester C. Ballard, Charles J. Stadelman, Gunnar Gjertsen, Frank E. Wirtanen, Arthur H. Lankford, and Urban A. Haughn.
Americans in charge of her engineroom during the same period were Chief Engineers Otto W. Sund, Thor O. Sandin, George A. Proctor, William M. Strang, and Charles E. Swedburg.
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