SS Fairfield

Last updated
History
Civil Ensign of the United Kingdom.svg United Kingdom
NameSS Fairfield
Namesake Fairfield, County Durham
OwnerAberdeen Coal & Shipping Co Ltd
BuilderEltringhams Ltd, South Shields
Yard number310
Launched17 December 1914
Completed1915
In service1915
Out of service1922
Identification
FateSold to new owners
Flag of Ireland.svg Ireland
NameSS Luimneach
Namesake Limerick (Irish: Luimneach)
OwnerLimerick SS Co Ltd
BuilderEltringhams Ltd, South Shields
In service1922
Out of service1940
FateSunk by naval gunfire 4 September 1940
NotesWreck position 47° 50'N, 9° 12'W, at an approximate depth of 9,800 ft (3,000 m)
General characteristics
Tonnage1,074  GRT
Length220 ft (67 m)
Beam34 ft (10 m)
Draught14 ft (4.3 m)
Decks3
Installed power174 NHP
Propulsion1 x 3 cyl. triple expansion engine, single screw
Speed11 knots (20 km/h)
Crew18

SS Fairfield was a UK cargo ship built in 1915 by Eltringham J. T. Ltd. of South Shields in county Tyne and Wear for the Aberdeen Coal & Shipping Co.

Contents

Construction and service

The ship served primarily as an ore carrier on runs between ports in Spain and her home country for seven years before being sold to Irish owners, the Limerick Steamship Co, with whom she operated for the remainder of her career. The ship's new owners renamed her Luimneach, the Irish for Limerick. While in their service, in October 1938 during the Spanish Civil War she was damaged by bombs in the harbor at Valencia, Spain, but repaired and returned to service. This event resulted in the death of one crew member.

Final voyage and loss

Luimneach departed Huelva on 2 September 1940 under the command of Eric Septimus Jones, transporting 1,250 tons of pyrites back to Drogheda in Ireland. [1] Although her cargo could be considered war material, as both her port of origination and destination were neutral parties she sailed under guaranteed neutrality protections as provided by the Law of Maritime Neutrality. [2] As such, she had no escort. Two days out of port, she was stopped in international waters by the German U-boat U-46 , under the command of Engelbert Endrass, with two shots across her bow [3] about 170 miles west-southwest of Ushant. [4]

Some confusion existed between parties in this incident, with the merchant crew believing the submarine was Italian while Endrass was unsure of the nationality of the ship he'd stopped. Among the crew of Luimneach were three men from belligerent nations (two British and one Maltese), and it is possible that is why the merchant crew abandoned ship. Endrass also reported in his log that the merchant crew "lost their heads completely" at the shots across their bow, [5] adding to the confusion aboard a netural-flagged vessel under fire in a time of war. Having left their ship in a single, overcrowded lifeboat, without provisions, Endrass ordered them to return and launch the second lifeboat, which they did. He then provided rations, cigarettes, and alcohol before sinking Luimneach with U-46's deck gun.

Survivors

The lifeboats proceeded separately, eventually being rescued by two different French fishing vessels. The starboard lifeboat, containing the master and eight crew, was picked up by St. Pierre, which subsequently transferred them to a Spanish trawler that landed them at Pasajes on 13 September. The port lifeboat was treated differently, as among the nine crew aboard were three from nations hostile to Vichy France. These men were landed at Lorient on 6 September and handed over to Germany as prisoners of war while the remaining men, one Belgian and five Irish, were allowed to return home. [4]

Related Research Articles

German submarine <i>U-47</i> (1938) World War II German submarine

German submarine U-47 was a Type VIIB U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. She was laid down on 25 February 1937 at Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft in Kiel as yard number 582 and went into service on 17 December 1938 under the command of Günther Prien.

SS <i>American Victory</i> Victory ship of WWII

SS American Victory is a Victory ship which saw brief service in the Pacific Theater of Operations during the final months of World War II, Korean War from 1951–1954, and Vietnam War from 1967–1969. Built in June 1945, she carried ammunition and other cargo from U.S. West Coast ports to Southeast Asia, then ferried cargo, equipment and troops back to the U.S. after the war ended. She survived two typhoons and one hurricane. She sailed around the world twice.

SS <i>Emidio</i>

Hammac was a steam tank ship built in 1920–1921 by Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation of Alameda for the United States Shipping Board as part of the wartime shipbuilding program of the Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFC) to restore the nation's Merchant Marine. Early in 1923 the vessel together with two other tankers was sold to General Petroleum Corporation and renamed Emidio. The tanker spent the vast majority of her career carrying oil along the West Coast of the United States as well as between West and East coast. In December 1941 she was shelled and damaged by the Japanese submarine I-17 and eventually wrecked with a loss of five crew.

SS <i>Irish Oak</i> (1919) Irish-operated steamship, sunk during World War II

The SS Irish Oak was an Irish-operated steamship which was sunk in the North Atlantic during World War II by a German submarine.

German submarine <i>U-46</i> (1938) German World War II submarine

German submarine U-46 was a Type VIIB U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. She had a highly successful career during the war.

SS Santa Rita was a refrigerated cargo ship built for the United States Maritime Commission by Federal Shipbuilding of Kearny, New Jersey in 1941. Operated by the Grace Line, Santa Rita en route from Cape Town to Charleston, South Carolina, when she was attacked by German submarine U-172 on 9 July 1942. Steaming on a non-evasive course at 16 knots (30 km/h) 700 nautical miles (1,300 km) northeast of Puerto Rico, a single torpedo from U-172 hit the ship in the near the engine room. The explosion destroyed the engines; opened a 30-foot (9.1 m) hole in the hull of the ship, which immediately flooded the No. 3 cargo hold; and killed one officer and two men. After ten minutes, the ship's master, Henry Stephenson, ordered the ship abandoned; most of the surviving officers and crew and the ship's two passengers had already boarded the Nos. 3 and 4 lifeboats.

SS Express was a Type C3-E cargo ship of American Export Lines that was sunk by Japanese submarine I-10 in June 1942 in the Indian Ocean. The ship, built in 1940 by Bethlehem Shipbuilding in Quincy, Massachusetts, was one of eight sister ships built for the United States Maritime Commission on behalf of American Export Lines. Out of a total of 55 men aboard the ship at the time of her torpedoing, 13 were killed; most of the other 42 landed on the coast of Mozambique six days after the sinking.

Irish maritime events during World War II

Below is the timeline of maritime events during the Emergency,. This period was referred to as The Long Watch by Irish Mariners. This list is of events which affected the Irish Mercantile Marine, other ships carrying Irish exports or imports, and events near the Irish coast.

SS <i>Irish Willow</i> (1918)

Irish Willow was one of the few ships which maintained Irish trade during World War II.

SS <i>Jalabala</i> (1927)

SS Jalabala was the cargo steamship owned by Scindia Steam Navigation Company Ltd., the British Indian shipping company, which was completed in 1927. She was torpedoed and sunk in the Laccadive Sea west of Cape Comorin by the German submarine U-532 with the loss of five of her 77 crew members on 11 October 1943 during World War II.

I-37, originally numbered I-49, was a Japanese Type B1 submarine in service with the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. Commissioned in 1943, she made three war patrols, all in the Indian Ocean, during the last of which her crew committed war crimes by massacring the survivors of the merchant ships she sank. Subsequently, converted into a kaiten manned suicide attack torpedo carrier, she was sunk during her first kaiten mission in 1944.

SS <i>Alice F. Palmer</i> Liberty ship of World War II

SS Alice F. Palmer was a liberty ship built by California Shipbuilding Corporation of Los Angeles, Laid down on 12 February 1943 and launched on 12 March 1943 for the War Shipping Administration (WSA) with a hull# 726. Named for Alice Freeman Palmer, President of Wellesley College from 1881 to 1887 and Dean of Women at the University of Chicago from 1892 to 1895. Alice F. Palmer call sign was KKTF. She was operated as a United States Merchant Marine ship by the American President Lines of San Francisco. Alice F. Palmer was torpedoed and sank off Mozambique on July 10, 1943, during World War II.

SS <i>Anne Hutchinson</i> World War II Liberty ship of the United States

SS Anne Hutchinson was a Liberty ship built by the Oregon Shipbuilding Company of Portland, Oregon, and launched on 31 May 1942 The ship was named after the Anne Hutchinson, a 1600 Massachusetts Bay Colony Puritan.

SS <i>Cynthia Olson</i>

SS Cynthia Olson was a cargo ship originally built in Wisconsin in 1918 as the SS Coquina. Renamed in 1940, in August 1941 she was chartered by the US Army to transport supplies to Hawaii. While in passage between Tacoma, Washington and Honolulu on December 7, she was intercepted by the Japanese submarine I-26, which sank her with gunfire. Although the commander of the submarine ensured that all of the crew had escaped into boats, none of them was ever found. Cynthia Olson was the first United States Merchant Marine vessel to be sunk after the entry of the United States into World War II.

SS <i>Managua</i> (1919)

SS Managua was a Nicaraguan cargo ship that the German submarine U-67 torpedoed on 16 June 1942 in the Straits of Florida while she was travelling from Charleston, South Carolina, United States to Havana, Cuba with a cargo of potash. The ship was built as Glorieta, a Design 1049 ship in 1919, operated by the United States Shipping Board (USSB) until sold to the Munson Steamship Line in 1920 and renamed Munisla. The ship was sold foreign to a Honduran company, Garcia, in 1937 and renamed Neptuno. In 1941 the ship was re-flagged in Nicaragua with the name Managua.

SS Everalda was a Latvian Cargo ship and part of the Latvian Mercantile Marine during World War II that the German submarine U-158 shelled and sank on 23 June 1942 in the Atlantic Ocean 360 nautical miles (670 km) south south west of Bermuda while she was travelling from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil while carrying general cargo.

SS Balto was a Norwegian steamship that was seized by the German Submarine SM U-49 on 6 November 1916 in the Bay of Biscay, and briefly used as a depot ship. She was then scuttled in the Atlantic Ocean 70 nautical miles (130 km) north east of Cape Villano, Spain on 9 November.

SS <i>Samoa</i>

The SS Samoa was a 1,997-ton cargo ship that was able to escape an attack off the coast of California in the early days of World War II. The Samoa was built under a United States Shipping Board (USSB) contract in 1918 as the SS Muerthe, but was launched as the USS Lake Pepin, named after Lake Pepin, by the McDougall Duluth Shipbuilding Company of Duluth, Minnesota measured at 3,600 tons deadweight. She had a triple expansion engine steam engine with 1,250 horsepower (930 kW), a 251-foot (77 m) length, 43.5-foot (13.3 m) beam, a draft of 17 feet 8+12 inches (5.398 m), a top speed of 9.25 knots. The vessel had a crew of 52, with the hull # 9 and O.N.ID # 21699. The USS Lake Pepin was owned and operated by the United States Navy, commissioned at Montreal, Quebec, Canada on 4 September 1918. For World War I she was fitted with one 3"/50 caliber gun. The Navy put her in Naval Overseas Transportation Service as a coal carrier traveling between the United Kingdom and France as a United States Navy Temporary auxiliary ship. Her coal service ended in May 1919. In June 1919 she returned to the US with a cargo of World War I vehicles and weapons and unused ammunition. The US Navy decommissioned the Lake Pepin on 18 June 1919. In 1923 she was, renamed Samoa purchased and operated by the Hammond Lumber Company. In 1936 she was sold to the Wheeler Logging Company of Portland, Oregon. In February of 1941 she was sold to W. A. Schaefer Company.

SS Westmoreland was a refrigerated steam merchant of the United Kingdom originally built in 1917 by D. & W. Henderson & Co Ltd, in Glasgow, Scotland, for Federal Steam Navigation Co. of London.

SS <i>Arcata</i> Ship built in Portland, Oregon, United States

SS Arcata, was built in 1919 as the SS Glymont for the United States Shipping Board as a merchant ship by the Albina Engine & Machine Works in Portland, Oregon. The 2,722-ton cargo ship Glymont was operated by the Matson Navigation till 1923 in post World War I work. In 1923 she was sold to Cook C. W. of San Francisco. In 1925 she was sold to Nelson Charles Company of San Francisco. In 1937 she was sold to Hammond Lumber Company of Fairhaven, California. For World War II, in 1941, she was converted to an US Army Troopship, USAT Arcata. She took supplies and troops to Guam. On July 14, 1942, she was attacked by Japanese submarine I-7 and sank. She was operating as a coastal resupply in the Gulf of Alaska, south of the Aleutian Islands at, approximately 165 nautical miles southeast of Sand Point, when she sank. She as returning after taking supplies to Army troop fighting in the Aleutian Islands campaign.

References

  1. Allen, Tony. "SS Luimneach". Wrecksite.eu. Retrieved 25 November 2020.
  2. Kraska, James (29 July 2020). "The Law of Maritime Neutrality and Submarine Cables". ejiltalk.org. Retrieved 25 November 2020.
  3. Vieggeert, Nico. "SS Luimneach". Wrecksite.eu. Retrieved 25 November 2020.
  4. 1 2 "Luimneach". uboat.net. Retrieved 25 November 2020.
  5. Robertson, Terence (1977) [1956]. Night raider of the Atlantic. Dutton. p. 85. ISBN   978-0-345-27103-7.