Auke Visser's International Esso Tankers site | home
Beaconoil : LIFELINE TO ENGLAND
SS. Beaconoil
Tied up in the Patuxent River with other Company vessels at the outbreak of hostilities, the Esso tanker Beaconoil was brought back into service on September 13, 1939. Under the command of Captain Carden Dwyer, with her engineroom in charge of Chief Engineer Edward A. Snyder, she carried her first wartime cargo, 72,335 barrels of gasoline, from Baytown, Texas, to New York, where she arrived on November 23.
Thereafter she continued on coastwise schedules until March, 1940, transporting kerosene, heating oil, and fuel oil from Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean ports to New York, Providence, Port Everglades, and Boston.
She was sold by the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey to the Panama Transport Company on January 20, 1940 and manned by a Canadian crew.
Under Panamanian registry, the Beaconoil made her first Atlantic crossing in World War II, taking on fuel oil and crude at Aruba, and sailing March 4, 1940 for Algiers. She then proceeded to the Near East and after loading Iraq crude at Tripoli in Lebanon, left on April 4 for Le Havre, France, where she arrived April 24. She discharged her cargo and sailed May 1, 1940. Not long afterward (May 10) Germany attacked the Lowlands and crossed the Meuse River at Sedan on May 12. The tragic battle of France followed, and on June 9 the French destroyed the Port Jerome Refinery, owned by Standard Francaise des Petroles.
The Beaconoil then returned to west Atlantic service, where-except for three voyage to Teneriffe, Canary Islands, and one to St. Vincent, Cape Verde Islands-she remained until September, 1941. An American crew took charge of her November 2, 1940. Loading at Caribbean ports, she carried fuel oil and crudes to New York, Boston, Baltimore, New Haven, South America, Puerto Rico, Balboa, St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, Aruba, and Havana.
Thereafter the vessel made a series of transatlantic crossings; interrupted only by two voyages from Curacao to New York, they constituted her war missions for nearly three years. During this period, U-boat activity in the North Atlantic increased in intensity, reaching its peak in the summer of 1942. Again and again the Beaconoil crossed the danger zones but came through unscathed, serving the Allied cause until the end of the war.
Transatlantic Oil Ferry
On the first of these North Atlantic voyages, the Beaconoil sailed September 17, 1941 from Trinidad with fuel oil for Milford Haven, England.
Thereafter she carried, on successive trips, cargoes of Diesel oil and gas oil from Corpus Christi to Swansea, Aruba to Glasgow, Houston to Glasgow, Aruba to Liverpool, New York to Glasgow, New York to Avonmouth, New York to Glasgow, New York to Glasgow and Londonderry, New York to Glasgow, Halifax to Glasgow, New York to Plymouth and Glasgow, New York to Liverpool and Brixham, New York to Scapa Flow, and New York to Grangemouth, whence she sailed July 23, 1944.
After July, 1944, the Beaconoil served in the west Atlantic and Caribbean. She carried cargoes of fuel oil and crude oil from Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean ports to N ew York, Newport, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Baltimore, Providence, New Haven, Philadelphia, Boston, Charleston, Houston, Balboa, and, on a large number of voyages, to Cristobal.
The American masters of the Beaconoil during the war were Captains William Mello, Carden Dwyer, Ole A. Faran, Robert J. Blair, Rasmus H. Rasmussen, Ralph E. Thomas, Anthony W. Bissick, Donald P. Swain, and Harold I. Cook.
Americans in charge of her engineroom were Chief Engineers Aksel E. Lundin, Edward A. Snyder, Peter V. Karls, Ferdinand Villamore, Thomas J. O'Brien, Jens C. Christensen, John A. Graham, Max D. Petersen, and Seth T. Miller.
The Beaconoil's wartime transportation record was in summary as follows.
The SS Beaconoil was constructed in 1919 by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, Ltd. at Alameda, California. The Beaconlight sunk July 16, 1942, was her sistership.
A single-screw vessel of 10,665 deadweight tons capacity on international summer draft of 27 feet, 11 inches, the Beaconoil has an overall length of 453 feet, a length between perpendiculars of 435 feet, a moulded breadth of 56 feet, and a depth moulded of 33 feet, 6 inches. With a cargo carrying capacity of 74,722 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 2,800 indicated horsepower and gives her a classification certified speed of 10.2 knots.
|