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ROBOT BOMP EXPLOSION
SS Esso Hartford
On the Esso Hartford's first voyage she rescued five survivors of a ship torpedoed in the Gulf of Mexico. On the new tanker's second voyage her U.S. Navy armed guard sighted a periscope a few hundred yards to starboard while the Esso Harlford was making a turn to port which left the submarine astern. Within a few minutes, escort planes arrived. The periscope was not seen again, but in the same vicinity another ship had just been hit and was sinking.
Between that time, in the summer of 1942, and the day of the Esso Hartford's most startling and bloodtingling war adventure, early in 1945, the vessel's many transatlantic voyages placed her among the American oil carriers that made distinguished records in the battle of supply, transporting to overseas ports the huge quantities of fuel oil, aviation gasoline, and other petroleum products used by the Allied forces fighting in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, France, and Germany.
Felt Bomb Concussion
On the return leg of a voyage to the United Kingdom in March, 1945, the officers and crew of the Esso Hartford felt the "terrible concussion" of an explosion in the water at a distance of about 400 yards. It was the shattering detonation of one of the V-2 or robot bombs, then being fired from launching platforms in the Netherlands, to rise with tre-mendous speed to great heights and descend upon London and the Thames estuary.
In June, 1945, the Esso Hartford began the first of two Navy fueling missions in the Pacific. The tanker that in 1943 had made three voyages through the cold North Atlantic to Iceland now received orders to transport, in tropical seas, two cargoes to distant Pacific bases, the first to Eniwetok and the second to Ulithi.
The SS Esso Hartford was built in 1942 by the Bethlehem-Sparrows Point Shipyard, Inc., at Sparrows Point, Md. She is a sistership of the Esso Annapolis (second vessel so named) and the Dartmouth. Another sistership, the Esso Harrisburg, was lost on July 6, 1944.
A single-screw vessel of 16,585 deadweight tons capacity on international summer draft of 30 feet,
1/8 inch, the Esso Hartford has an overall length of 501 feet, 7 3/4 inches, a length between perpendiculars of 487 feet, 6 inches, a moulded breadth of 68 feet, and a depth' moulded of 37 feet. With a cargo carrying capacity of 131,136 barrels, the Esso Hartford has an assigned pumping rate of 6,000 barrels an hour. Her turbine engine, supplied with steam by two water-tube boilers, develops 7,700 shaft horsepower and gives her a classification certified speed of 15 knots.
Among First to Test Detecting Device
The Esso Hartford was one of the three tankers of the Jersey fleet on which the U.S. Maritime Commission first in-stalled, for test purposes, an "electro-protective detecting device" to give warning of the presence of submarines or torpedoes.
On July 10, 1942, the Esso Hartford was delivered by her builder and joined the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey's tanker fleet. Commanded by Captain Andrew B. Jakobsen and with her engineroom in charge of Chief Engineer George O. Speth, the vesssel left Sparrows Point on July 17 for Ingleside, Texas, where she loaded her first cargo, 123,980 barrels of gasoline and distillate consigned to Baton Rouge. Between then and the end of the year the new vessel made five more coastwise voyages. Her second cargo, consisting of several grades, was split; of the total amount - 122,291 barrels - 33,000 barrels of medium, heating oil were discharged at New York; the remainder, gasoline and kerosene, was delivered at Bermuda.
A Rescue Ship
The rescue incident previously referred to as occurring on the first voyage of the Esso Hartford was described by Captain Jakobsen in an interview for this history:
"After leaving the shipyard on July 17, 1942, we went south in a 10-knot convoy, which included the Esso Richmond, commanded by Captain Frank Pharr. At Key West the formation was dispersed and the Esso Richmond went to Baytown, while the Esso Hartford proceeded to Corpus Christi.
"At Ingleside we loaded for Baton Rouge and sailed on Sunday morning, July 26, 1942. There had been no submarine activity west of the Mississippi up to that time, but we were .told to be careful on our way out. The Esso Hartford was armed with a 5-inch gun aft and eight machine guns. As escort we had a Navy PBY which followed us to Corpus Christi and then to Galveston.
Men Waved from Wreckage
"At about 10 a.m., July 26. Second Mate Garon V. Arnold noticed that the escort plane was acting strangely. At that time the Esso Hartford was making 16 knots. Looking far ahead, we sighted debris on the water and as we got closer we could see, among the wreckage, several men who were waving at us.
"We stopped, lowered a boat, picked up five survivors of the torpedoed Mexican vessel Oaxaca, and took them aboard the Esso Hartford. As the men were being brought on board, an Army launch from the shore approached us. We washed the oil from the faces of the survivors before they left on the launch."
Second Mate Arnold, mentioned above, reported for active duty on July 14. 1943 as a lieutenant (jg) in the Naval Reserve and was assigned as navigator of the Navy repair ship USS Mindanao (ARG 3). On November 10, 1944, the Mindanao was at Manus, Admiralty Islands, when the ammunition ship USS Mount Hood (AE-11) blew up with the loss of all hands. Lieutenant Arnold was seriously wounded by fragments of shell and shrapnel. His commanding officer, in a letter to the Chief of Naval Personnel dated April 10, 1945, characterized him as "an excellent navigator and an outstanding naval officer," and recommended him for promotion.
After relating the story of the rescue, Captain Jakobscn described the dangerous situation encountered by the Esso Hartford on her second voyage:
Sighted Periscope
"After discharging at Baton Rouge we went to New Orleans for repairs and on August 13, 1942 left for Baytown. When we were about half an hour out of Southwest Pass, the gun crew reported that there was a submarine's periscope off the starboard side. We were on one leg of a zigzag and the ship was taking a 60° turn to port, which put the submarine directly astern. We put on full speed, held to our course, resumed zigzagging, and got away.
"Shortly afterward we saw three or four planes. The plane escort I had asked for had caught up with us at the most opportune moment ! We thought we would see some action when the planes arrived, but nothing unusual happened. Perhaps the submarine had submerged at sight of the planes."
This incident was reported by the Coast Guard to the Navy and recorded as follows:
"August 14, 1942, CGSF reported Esso Hartford sighted periscope 500 yards off starboard bow at 0910 August 13, in Latitude 28°50' North, Longitude 89° 48' West."
In 1943 the Esso Hartford, in addition to carrying seven cargoes coastwise, made five transatlantic voyages - three from New York to Reykjavik; one from Port Arthur, Texas, to Gibraltar; and one from Aruba to Algiers.
On the voyage to Algiers, when Captain Carl Svenson was in command and Chief Engineer John W. Balzli had charge of the vessel's engineroom, the Esso Hartford narrowly missed an enemy air raid. Captain Svenson - who received the Congressional Medal of Honor for the part he played in rescuing the survivors of the burning Volturno in mid-Atlantic, in October, 1913, when he was quartermaster of the Kroonland - told the story of the air raid on shipping at Algiers which he witnessed nearly thirty years later, in June, 1943:
"On June 4 we had discharged our cargo at Algiers and the Esso Hartford was scheduled to sail the next day, when at about 5 p.m. we received orders to proceed immediately. We were about an hour out when we saw the air raid. A considerable number of enemy planes took part in the attack and it lasted half an hour. Although the Esso Hartford was only fifteen miles off shore when the raid started, we were apparently not seen by the bombers. This happened shortly before the invasion of Sicily."
In 1944 the Esso Hartford's voyages, nine in number, were all to foreign ports. Loading in the Gulf and Caribbean, she transported three cargoes to Avonmouth, two to Glasgow, two to Liverpool, one to Naples, and one to West Africa. The cargo for West Africa was discharged at Port Marshall, Liberia; Takoradi, Gold Coast; and Lagos, Nigeria.
During the last eight months of the war, between January 1 and September 2, 1945, the Esso Hartford made two coastwise and five foreign voyages. Of the latter, three were in the Atlantic and two in the Pacific. On January 18 the tanker sailed from New York in convoy with 113,424 barrels of gasoline for Liverpool and on February 27 she left New York with a cargo loaded at Philadelphia - 120,908 barrels of aviation gasoline - consigned to Thames Haven. It was while returning from Thames Haven that the Esso Hartford had the experience with a V-2 bomb.
After a second voyage to Liverpool and two coastwise voyages, the Esso Hartford began her fueling missions in the Pacific when she sailed from Curacao on June 8, 1945, with 102,478 barrels of Navy fuel oil.
On her first voyage in the Pacific the tanker left Balboa on June 15 and arrived at Eniwetok on July 6. Between then and her departure on July 13 the Esso Hartford discharged into the Navy vessels YO 161 and 163, the USS Chat-ham (AK169), and two merchant ships, the SS Mission Carmel and the SS McKittrick Hills.
Beginning her second Pacific voyage, the Esso Hartford left Honolulu on July 25. Her cargo of special Navy fuel oil was dicharged at Ulithi, August 5 to 16, into the YO 76, YO 110, the SS Paulus Hook, the SS Pine Bluff, and the Standard Oil (N. J.) tanker Esso Memphis. On V-J Day, the Esso Hartford was returning from Ulilhi to Balboa.
In three years and two months, on thirty-four voyages, the vessel had carried an unusual variety of petroleum products running the gamut of grades from crude oil through fuel, Diesel, and heating oils, kerosene, and motor gasoline, to 100 octane gasoline.
The wartime transportation record of the £550 Hartford was in summary as follows:
The masters of the Esso Hartford in the war years were Captains Andrew B. Jakobsen, Nils Borgeson, Daniel H. Larsen, Frank G. T. G. Bootz, Adolv Larson, and Carl Svenson.
In charge of her engine department during the same period were Chief Engineers George O. Speth, John W. Balzli, Robert M. Waltze, and Fred F. Newton. Mr. Speth was chief engineer when the war ended.
Captain Carl Svenson, while in command of the Esso Hartford in 1943, received the following letter of commendation from Vice Admiral Alexander Sharp, Jr., USN:
UNITED STATES ATLANTIC FLEET
SERVICE FORCE Care of Fleet Post Office Naval Operating Base, Norfolk, Va.
27 November. 1943
Captain Carl Svenson
c/o Standard Oil Company of New Jersey
Marine Department
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, New York
Dear Sir:
The SS Esso Hartford under your command reported to the Service Force, Atlantic Fleet, on 10 July 1943. Since that time the SS Esso Hartford has rendered excellent service to this Force which I deeply appreciate.
You have performed your duties cheerfully and capably. Now that the SS Esso Hartford will soon be detached from my command, my best wishes go with you.
Sincerely,
Alex Sharp.
Vice Admiral, U. S. Navy
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