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PACIFIC SUPPLY SHIP
MS Esso Balboa
The Panama Transport Company tanker Esso Balboa was one of two vessels, Hulls 224 and 225, under construction in a
shipyard at Hamburg, Germany, when war broke out in Europe on September 3, 1939. Her sister hull was to be named
Esso Colon. The Esso Balboa was officially completed October 31, 1939; on that day a Panama Transport Company repre-sentative signed an acceptance for the new tanker.
Delivery of the Esso Balboa came none too soon. Hull 225 never became the Esso Colon. The German government refus-ed to permit delivery to her owners and appropriated the vessel for their own use.
Came to U. S. via Denmark
On November 2, 1939 the Esso Balboa was moved to Copenhagen, Denmark. There she was taken in charge by the first
of a series of Danish crews, who manned her throughout the war.
The Esso Balboa's first cargo was 113,608 barrels of water white, naphtha, and gasoline loaded at Talara, Peru, December 3 to 7, 1939 and discharged at the Chilean ports of Valparaiso and San Antonio. During 1940 she alternated foreign, coast-wise, and South American trips carrying cargoes of fuel and crude oils.
The fateful year 1941 found the Esso Balboa engaged almost exclusively in service in the eastern Pacific. She loaded fuel
oil and crude at Talara, Peru; San Pedro, California; and La Libertad, Ecuador, delivering her cargoes at Chilean and Peru-vian ports and at Vancouver, B. C. She was returned to Caribbean-east coast runs for several months in 1942 and was
time chartered to the United States \\Tar Shipping Administration at Norfolk on March 31, 1942.
Also Served in Pacific
The Esso Balboa made her first trip to the Pacific war zone when she sailed from Aruba on April 30, 1942 with 96,374 bar-
rels of Navy special fuel oil for Australia. This was the first of 12 voyages the vessel made into the hazardous Pacific combat
area. Her twelfth mission in those distant waters was completed April 4, 1945, when she arrived at Balboa from Espiritu Santo, in the New Hebrides, and Guadalcanal.
Wartime Record
The Esso Balboa spent the last five months of the war mainly in coastwise service, the only exception being a voyage to
Pearl Harbour in June, 1945.
The tanker's wartime transportation record was in summary as follows:
The MS Esso Balboa was built in1939 by Deutschewerft Aktiengesellschaft, at Hamburg, Germany.
A single-screw vessel of 14,750 deadweight tons, capacity on international summer draft of 28 feet, 4 inches, she has an overall length of 510 feet, 8 1/2 inches, a length between perpendiculars of 481 feet, 6 inches, a moulded breadth of 65 feet, 9 inches, and a depth moulded of 35 feet, 11 inches. With a cargo carrying capacity of 118,186 barrels, she has an assigned pumping rate of 3,500 barrels an hour.
Her Diesel engine develops 4,100 brake horsepower and gives her a classification certified speed of 12.2 knots.
The Scandinavian masters of the Esso Balboa during the war were Captains O. L A. Andersen and Rasmus A. Christopher-sen.
Associated with them were Chief Engineers Niels, G. Jensen, Christian H. Hansen, and Lars G. Larsen.
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