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LENT-LEASE ACCOUNT
SS Niobe
First with American and later with Danish crews the Niobe was a notable carrier of oil products throughout the war. Her per-formance record from March 29, 1942 to May 3, 1944 was distinguished by her service while operated for account of British Lend-Lease and subsequently while under control of the British Ministry of War Transport.
On September 3, 1939, when Great Britain and France declared war on the German invaders of Poland, the Niobe was en route from Aruba to Sao Salvador, Brazil; she arrived on the 13th with 64,554 barrels of fuel oil. During the entire period covered by the President's proclamation of a limited emergency, from September 8, 1939 to May 27, 1941, the owners of the Niobe kept her manned by American crews and in Western Hemisphere trade, except for one voyage from Aruba to St. Vincent in the Cape Verde Islands, in May of 1940. This was permissible for Americans because "combat area", as defined by President Roosevelt in his proclamation of November 4, 1939, did not extend south of the Mediterranean.
The Niobe transported four cargoes - two of fuel oil, one of topped Colombian crude, and a "split" cargo of fuel and Diesel oils - between her departure from Sao Salvador on September 14 and the end of 1939.
Delivered Thirteen Cargoes in 1940
Her 1940 record included thirteen cargoes delivered, of which eleven were fuel oils with various gravities and two were split between fuel and Diesel oils in one case and fuel and gas oils in the other.
Early in 1941 the United States Maritime Commission began calling on the Committee of American Tanker Owners for assignment of tonnage to shuttle service which was auxiliary to the transatlantic movement of oil to the United Kingdom. Also in 1941 the petroleum industry was called upon to supply a steadily increasing amount of tanker tonnage for spot require-ments of the Navy and special services, first in connection with national defense and la'ter with the war effort.
In August, 1941, the Niobe's American crew was replaced with Danes and on August 8 the tanker, under the Panama flag, left Baltimore for Curacao, where she received orders to proceed on her first wartime voyage to a combat area. With heavy southern fuel (41,558 barrels) loaded at Curacao and heavy Venezuelan crude (24,791 barrels) lifted at Las Piedras, the Niobe sailed in convoy from Sydney, Nova Scotia, to the United Kingdom, arriving on October 3, and discharged her cargo at terminals on the Firth of Clyde, Scotland.
In 1941, besides her United Kingdom cargo, the Niobe delivered thirteen others in Western Hemisphere trade. These included one loading of North Atlantic bunker quality fuel oil, which was discharged at Recife, Brazil.
On February 3, 1942, the Niobe left New York under the command of Captain Jorgen Jorgensen en route to Caripito, via Port-of-Spain. Her chief engineer on this trip was Soren Martinsen. The vessel was armed with a 4-inch gun aft and two 30-caliber machine guns. She had no U. S. Navy armed guard, but four of her Danish crew had been trained at the Hoffman Island gunnery school of the United States Maritime Commission. On February 5, at about 1:15 p.m., when the vessel was 29 miles southeast of Gape Henry and 8 miles east of Cape False light buoy, the U. S. Navy intercepted a radio message from the Niobe announcing a submarine attack.
In an interview for this history. Captain Jorgensen said, "We were approaching Hatteras when we sighted a periscope and fired about 20 rounds at it. In response to our radio message, five planes came out from shore. One of them, a Catalina bomber, dropped several depth charges. Our gunners thought they had scored a hit."
In connection with a sinking which occurred on the day before the N lobe's adventure, the following is quoted from the first of a series of stories entitled "Depth Charge", which appeared in the New York World-Telegram of October 10, 1945:
"One of the most terrifying incidents of the early U-boat campaign was the sinking on February 4, 1942 of the Norwegian freighter Blink, 160 miles off Hatteras. The little tramp, 3,600 tons of phosphate aboard, was torpedoed in heavy seas rocked by a gale force wind in zero weather."
On February 16, 1942, when enemy submarines shelled the island of Aruba and torpedoed vessels anchored nearby, the Niobe was loading Diesel oil at Caripito, Venezuela, for delivery to Imperial Oil, Ltd., at Halifax.
Requisitioned for Lend-Lease
Slightly in advance of other vessels of the Panama Transport fleet, the Niobe was time chartered to the War Shipping Administration on March 24, 1942. Her first assignment under Government control was to transport a series of cargoes to African ports; her use for this purpose had been requisitioned under Lend-Lease by the British and cargo instructions were issued by the British Ministry of War Transport. Subsequently, in May, the Anglo-American Oil Company, Ltd., was appointed as operator of the Niobe on behalf of the Ministry.
Before leaving New York on March 29 to load cargo at Aruba for Cape Town on orders of the British Ministry, the Niobe, at the direction of the New York District Manager of the War Shipping Administration, loaded on deck a total of 42 cases of airplane parts consigned to Basra, in the Persian Gulf, on Russian Lend-Lease account.
On May 21, the Niobe arrived at Cape Town, via Port-of-Spain, with 42,240 barrels of Pool marine Diesel oil and 25,180 barrels of North Atlantic bunker fuel oil. After discharging her oil cargo, the vessel proceeded to Abadan, reached there June 17, and unloaded her deck cargo.
The Niobe transported three Abadan cargoes for British Lend-Lease - one to Durban (4,395 sea miles), a second to Aden in Arabia, and the last to Simons-town - and then was ordered by the British to Fremantle. West Australia, with cargo from Abadan, after discharge of which she returned to San Pedro, California, for repairs, arriving on April 8, 1943. In addition to bulk cargo transported from Abadan to Fremantle, the Niobe carried dry cargo consisting of about 2,000 drums of Shell branded asphalt products.
For the rest of 1943, still operated by Anglo, the Niobe discharged two cargoes from San Pedro at Auckland, New Zealand; after delivering the second of these, she loaded a cargo there from the MS Trocas and took on planes for Melbourne. From Melbourne she continued westward to Abadan, arriving on November 19. Between then and her return, via Suez, to New York on May 3, 1944 for repairs, the Niobe delivered oil from Abadan to Indian and Ceylon ports.
Between May 26, 1944, when she completed repairs, and the end of 1944, the Niobe was in Caribbean-Gulf-coastwise service and transported eight cargoes of oil products.
Two days after V-J Day, September 2, 1945, the Niobe arrived at Cristobal with 76,482 barrels of fuel oil, the last of 19 cargoes which the vessel carried in 1945.
The World War II transportation record of the Niobe was in summary as follows:
The SS Niobe was built in 1915 by G. Seebeck A.G. at Geestemunde, Germany.
A single-screw vessel of 11,745 deadweight tons capacity on international summer draft of 25 feet, 8s/g inches, she has an overall length of 494 feet, 8 3^ inches, a length between perpendiculars of 476 feet, a moulded breadth of 62 feet, and a depth moulded of 28 feet, 9 inches. With a cargo carrying capacity of 82,892 barrels, she has an assigned pumping rate of 4,000 barrels an hour. Her quadruple expansion engine, supplied with steam by three Scotch boilers, develops 2,200 indicated horsepower and gives her a classification certified speed of 9.2 knots.
The American masters of the Niobe in wartime were Captains Nils Borgeson, Swen A. Malm, Fred Marcus, and Lionel E. Crowder.
The Americans in charge of her engineroom during the war were Chief Engineers Andrew E. Larson, Jens' C. Christensen, and Alexander J. G. Maitland.
The wartime Danish masters of the Niobe were Captains Jorgen Jorgensen, Christian Jensen, Helge Quistgaard, and Ras-mus Christophersen.
The Danes in charge of her engineroom during this period were Chief Engineers Borge Ostrup, Soren Martinsen, and Erik V. Helbeck.
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