| History | |
|---|---|
| Name |
|
| Owner | Lago Oil and Transport Company (Esso) |
| Port of registry | London |
| Builder |
|
| Launched | 14 July 1938 |
| Completed | September 1938 |
| Refit | after torpedo attack on 16 February 1942 |
| Homeport | London |
| Fate | broken up at Rotterdam, October 1959 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | oil tanker |
| Tonnage | 4,317 GRT |
| Crew | 26 |
SS Pedernales was a lake tanker of the World War II and post war eras. She was built in 1938 in Monfalcone, Italy, and sailed under the British flag. Pedernales was severely damaged in a torpedo attack on 16 February 1942 while anchored at Aruba.
The damaged ship was cut into three sections. The fore and aft sections were joined, and the ship made her way to Baltimore, Maryland, to be rebuilt. The middle section was left in Aruba and, after being used for a number of years as a target by Dutch gunners after the war, has become a scuba diving site.
The rebuilt portion of the tanker, later renamed Esso Pedernales and Katendrecht, was scrapped in 1959.
SS Pedernales was completed in September 1938 by Cantieri Riuniti dell'Adriatico of Monfalcone, Italy. [1] She operated as a lake tanker, sailing from Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela to the refinery at Aruba.
On the morning of 16 February 1942, U-156, under the command of Kapitänleutnant Werner Hartenstein, commenced an attack on oil tankers at anchor in San Nicolas Harbor in Aruba as part of Operation Neuland. Among other ships, Pedernales was torpedoed and damaged; it was later beached by two tugs and abandoned. [1]
Later, the hulk was towed to the Lago Dry Dock on Aruba where she was cut into three sections. The fore and aft sections were joined and the ship made way under her own power to Baltimore, Maryland, where she had a new midsection installed, and continued her career. [1]
After the end of World War II, the tanker continued sailing under her same name until 1957 when she was renamed Esso Pedernales. After another renaming the following year to Katendrecht, she was scrapped at Rotterdam in 1959. [1]
 |
The damaged middle section of Pedernales was towed away from the dry dock and was used for many years as a target by Dutch Navy aircraft. The bombing practice scattered the remnants of the wreck into eight sections of wreckage. Portions of the wreck are a popular scuba diving attraction. The three largest sections of the wreck are used daily by local dive operators. The remnants rest in 25 feet (7.6 m) of water at 12°34′44″N70°03′30″W / 12.57889°N 070.05833°W .
USS Atlanta (CL-51) of the United States Navy was the lead ship of the Atlanta class of eight light cruisers. She was the third Navy ship named after the city of Atlanta, Georgia. Designed to provide anti-aircraft protection for US naval task groups, Atlanta served in this capacity in the naval battles Midway and the Eastern Solomons. Atlanta was heavily damaged by Japanese and friendly gunfire in a night surface action on 13 November 1942 during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. The cruiser was sunk on her captain's orders in the afternoon of the same day.
RFA Abbeydale (A109) was a fleet tanker of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary and was originally one of six ships ordered by the British Tanker Co which were purchased on the stocks by the Admiralty. She was built by Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson Ltd and launched on 28 December 1936. Abbeydale served until being decommissioned on 18 September 1959 and laid up at HMNB Devonport. She was then sold for scrapping, arriving at the Thos. W. Ward breakers' yards at Barrow-in-Furness on 4 September 1960.
HMS Sidon was a submarine of the Royal Navy, launched in September 1944, one of the third group of S class built by Cammell Laird & Co Limited, Birkenhead, named after the naval bombardment of Sidon in 1840. An explosion caused by a faulty torpedo sank her in Portland Harbour with the loss of 13 lives.
SSMeteor is the sole surviving ship of the unconventional "whaleback" design. The design, created by Scottish captain Alexander McDougall, enabled her to carry a maximum amount of cargo with a minimum of draft. Meteor was built in 1896 in Superior, Wisconsin, United States, and, with a number of modifications, sailed until 1969. She is now a museum ship in the city of her construction.
The Battle of the Caribbean refers to a naval campaign waged during World War II that was part of the Battle of the Atlantic, from 1941 to 1945. German U-boats and Italian submarines attempted to disrupt the Allied supply of oil and other material. They sank shipping in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico and attacked coastal targets in the Antilles. Improved Allied anti-submarine warfare eventually drove the Axis submarines out of the Caribbean region.
HMS Ledbury was an escort destroyer of the Hunt class Type II. The Royal Navy ordered Ledbury's construction two days after the outbreak of the Second World War and J. I. Thornycroft Ltd laid down her keel at their Southampton yard on 24 January 1940. Air raid damage to the yard delayed her construction and she did not launch until 27 September 1941. Her initial assignment was to perform escort duties between Scapa Flow and Iceland. She remained in this theatre for the first part of the war, during which time she served with the ill-fated Arctic convoy PQ 17 in June 1942, from which twenty-four ships were lost.
SS James Eagan Layne was a liberty ship. She was beached and sunk during the Second World War off Whitsand Bay, Cornwall, United Kingdom.
Esso Brussels was a commercial oil tanker built for the Esso Oil company in 1959. She was involved in a collision in 1973 in which thirteen of her crew perished. She was rebuilt and sailed under various other names until being scrapped in 1985.
The attack on Aruba was an attack on oil installations and tankers by Axis submarines during World War II. On 16 February 1942, a German U-boat attacked the small Dutch island of Aruba. Other submarines patrolled the area for shipping and they sank or damaged tankers. Aruba was home to two of the largest oil refineries in the world during the war against the Axis powers, the Arend Petroleum Company, situated near the Oranjestad harbor, and the Lago Oil and Transport Company at the San Nicolas harbor. The attack resulted in the disruption of vital Allied fuel production.
The Henry Chisholm was a wooden freighter that sank off the shore of Isle Royale in Lake Superior in 1898 and the remains are still on the lake bottom. The wreck was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
MV C.O. Stillman was an oil tanker that was built by a German shipyard in 1928 for a Canadian-based shipping company. A Panamanian subsidiary of Esso bought her at the end of 1936 and she was sunk by the German submarine U-68 in the Caribbean on June 4, 1942 about 41 nautical miles (76 km) southwest of Isla de Mona, Puerto Rico.
The Fort ships were a class of 198 cargo ships built in Canada during World War II for use by the United Kingdom. They all had names prefixed with "Fort" when built. The ships were in service between 1942 and 1985, with two still listed on shipping registers until 1992. A total of 53 were lost during the war due to accidents or enemy action. One of these, Fort Stikine, was destroyed in 1944 by the detonation of 1,400 tons of explosive on board her. This event, known as the Bombay Explosion, killed over 800 people and sank thirteen ships. Fort ships were ships transferred to the British Government and the Park ships were those employed by the Canadian Government, both had the similar design.
The following index is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Wikipedia's articles on recreational dive sites. The level of coverage may vary:
Esso Maracaibo was a tanker of the Creole Petroleum Corporation. She was the second ship of that enterprise to bear that name, the first one having been USS Narraguagas. Its purpose was to transport crude oil between Lake Maracaibo and Aruba. It made international headlines on 6 April 1964, when it rammed the General Rafael Urdaneta Bridge, causing two spans of it to collapse.
Freccia was the lead ship of her class of four destroyers built for the Regia Marina in the early 1930s. Completed in 1931, she served in World War II and previous conflicts.
Kizugawa Maru, or Kitsugawa Maru, is a World War II-era Japanese water tanker sunk in Apra Harbor, Guam. Damaged by a submarine torpedo attack off Guam on April 8, 1944, she was towed into port for repairs. In port, she was further damaged in three separate U.S. air attacks during the Mariana and Palau Islands campaign. Deemed irreparable, Kizugawa Maru was scuttled by shore guns on June 27, 1944. The shipwreck is now a deep recreational diving site.
