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The Attack on the "Stanvac Calcutta (I) - Part- 1
The SS STANVAC CALCUTTA was requisitioned by the War Shipping Administration for war service at Covenas, Colombia on April 25, 1942.
The tanker, SS STANVAC CALCUTTA, was attacked and sunk by the German Armed Raider, STIER, ex German CAIRO (also known as Schiff 23), under the command of Captain Horst Gerlach, on June 6, 1942 at 1012 ship's time. The ship was en route from Montevideo, Uruguay to Caripito, Venezuela in ballast and unescorted. She had left Montevideo on May 29, 1942. The attack took place about 500 miles off the coast of Brazil.
On board was a complement of 42 merchant crew and 9 Naval Armed Guard. Of this number, 14 merchant seamen were killed in the attack plus 3 Navy gun crew. One crew member, the 1st Engineer, died in Camp Fukuoka, a Japanese POW camp.
Eleven crew members were wounded.
The attack commenced at 1012 ship's time. When the Master arrived at the bridge, along with the Chief Mate, the STIER was sighted about 4 points off the port bow about 4 miles distant. The STIER raised the International Code Signal to "STOP ENGINES". The Master of the CALCUTTA then ordered the ship to slow speed until the Chief Mate spotted the German ensign flying from the mainmast. Captain Karlsson then called for full speed and hard right rudder to run away from the STIER. He then gave orders to open fire from both the forward and the after gun.
Both guns fired about 20 to 25 shells each, two of which hit the STIER at the forward mast, the other entering the crew's quarters aft of # 5 hatch wounding two men.
The STIER replied with 148 rounds of 5.9 inch and a torpedo which caused terrible damage and the sinking of the ship.The ship listed rapidly and became dead in the water settling by the stern. The Chief Mate tried to correct the list with ballast but noticing the ship was dead in the water and out of commission, he returned to the bridge where he found the Master and the man at the wheel both dead and the body of the Radio Operator near the Radio Room.
All the survivors were picked up by the STIER. Martin Hyde, an Ordinary Seaman, died of his wounds on board the STIER on June 7th and was buried at sea with an American flag draped over him. The service was conducted by a shipmate.
The survivors of the CALCUTTA, wounded and unwounded, remained together until June 12th, when the German supply tanker, MS CHARLOTTE SCHLIFMANN, fueled the STIER. It was at this time that 24 of the survivors (17 merchant crew and 7 Navy men) and all unhurt, were put aboard the supply tanker. At some unknown date, they were transferred to the German freighter, DOGGERBANK (ex British SPEYBANK) which took them to Japan where they were imprisoned at Camp Fukuoka.
The remaining survivors, all wounded, were kept aboard the ST1ER until July 27th. At this time ten of them were put aboard the tanker CHARLOTTE SCHLIEMANN, which had returned to fuel the STIER. An A.B. from the CALCUTTA, was kept aboard the STIER, too badly wounded to be moved.
This tanker took these ten from the CALCUTTA to Japan landing them at Yokohama in October 1942. They were imprisoned at Camp Osaka where they were kept until the end of hostilities.
Sixteen of the crew members survived for the duration of the war. The 1st Engineer, Arthur R. Mont, died in this camp in March 1944. The A.B., Sahadi Hassan, left on the STIER-was yet to experience another sinking.
On September 27, 1942, the STIER became embroiled in a gun fight with the American Liberty Ship SS STEPHEN HOPKINS.
The STIER was so badly damaged the ship had to be abandoned and eventually sunk, All survivors of the STIER, including Hassan, were taken aboard the German blockade runner TANNENFELS. The TANNENFELS landed at Bordeaux where Hassan was placed in Val de Grace hospital. When he had recovered from his wounds he was sent to a German POW camp for merchant seamen at Marlag und Milag. He was liberated on April 28, 1945 by the advancing Allied armies.
When the CALCUTTA failed to arrive at Caripito on the due date, which was June 19th, concern for her safety was felt. As the days and weeks passed, it had to be assumed the ship and its crew had disappeared.
On November 20, 1942, death certificates were issued for all the crew members by the War Shipping Administration and War Risk insurance benefits were paid to the next of kin.
Ten months later, on March 19, 1943, a letter to Socony Vacuum from Sahidi Hassan, who was in a hospital in France, suffering from wounds, and asking for shoes and cigarettes and anything else that was convenient to send through the Red Cross.
These things were sent to him with a letter asking how he had become wounded. The Company checked the crew list of the
CALCUTTA and discovered he was on the ship when she left Montevideo.
On May 17, 1943, the company was informed by Washington that 27 crew members of the CALCUTTA were prisoners of war in Japan. When this became known the WSA revoked the death benefits and attempts were made to get the War risk insurance money paid back to the government.
The "STANVAC CALCUTTA" was awarded the Gallant Ship Citation. (See Page 552)
Another classic example of Americans serving aboard a foreignflag vessel was the case of the Stanvac Calcutta. This ship, owned by the Socony-Vacuum oil Co., was registered in Panama, and had a pick-up crew that had a number of Americans in it but was not recruited by the WSA or through an American union hiring hall. She also had an Armed Guard detachment of nine men, furnished by the US Navy. In May of 1942, in the South Atlantic, in an episode that was to earn her the "Gallant Ship" designation of the US government, she had resisted an attempt by the German raider Stier to get her to surrender, and ended up exchanging gunfire with that ship. After 148 shells had been fired at her, the Stanvac Calcutta eventually sank with a loss of 14 crewmen. The men who escaped to the boats were captured by the Germans, and virtually all of them, including the American Armed Guard sailors, were put aboard a German tanker which transferred them to another German ship for transport to Japan where they spent the rest of the war in a POW camp.
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