MS West Honaker - Final Voyage

Final Voyage

Though her crew did not know it at the time, West Honaker had been selected to be one of the blockships for the Allied invasion of France, then in the planning stages. Blockships dispatched from Boston, like West Honaker, were loaded with "tons of sand and cement" before their final U.S. departures. West Honaker sailed from Boston on 25 March 1944 as a part of Convoy BX-101 to Halifax and, from there, Convoy SC-156 to Cardiff. In his book Beyond the Palisades, Cesar Poropat, West Honaker's chief engineer, reports that after the ship's cargo was discharged, the ship was suddenly boarded by shipyard workers who cut holes in "strategic places" and positioned "mysterious packs" around the hull. The crew suspected, correctly, that these packs were explosives and that the ship was being prepared for sinking. Though there is no specific mention of this occurring on West Honaker, other blockships selected for the Normandy beachhead had their existing antiaircraft weapons moved higher on the ship and supplemented by additional guns.

Poropat recounts that after the shipyard workers departed, the crew were told to pack all their personal belongings—except for toiletries and one change of clothes—to be sent ashore. Each crewman was issued a backpack with K-rations, a special life preserver, and survival equipment. West Honaker departed Cardiff on 24 April for Oban where she arrived on 5 May. She was now a part of the "Corncob Fleet," the group of ships to be sunk to form the "gooseberries," shallow-water artificial harbors for landing craft. Once at Oban, Poropat reports that the ship's crew was told of their mission, but to preserve secrecy, they were not permitted to leave the ships.

After spending five weeks at Oban—Poropat called it "the longest and most tedious five weeks" of his life—West Honaker finally moved out, sailing south through the Irish Sea to Poole. West Honaker was a part of the third "Corncob" convoy, which sailed from Poole on the night on 7 June, the day after the D-Day landings, and consisted of what one author called the "dregs of the North Atlantic shipping pool." Poropat relates that the Corncob ships crossed the English Channel under cover of darkness and, stripped of all unnecessary equipment, carried no radios, having only a signal lamp (with a spare bulb) for communication.

Around midnight 7/8 June, during the slow voyage across the Channel, a German airplane hit West Honaker with two skip bombs. Because the ship, already prepared for a fast sinking for the blockship duties, began taking on water, a large portion of the crew, including Chief Engineer Poropat, abandoned ship. After drifting in the Channel for most of the rest of the moonless night, they were picked up in the morning by a British trawler and returned to the UK. In the meantime, the master of the ship was able to keep West Honaker in the convoy headed to Utah beach.

Once at the designated location, the ships were positioned and scuttled over the next days, under heavy German artillery fire. Naval Armed Guardsmen manned the guns on all the gooseberry ships to protect against frequent German air attacks. All the while, harbor pilots—about half of the New York Bar Pilots Association, according to one source—carefully positioned the ships. West Honaker was sunk on 10 June about 400 yards (370 m) off the beach, but continued to serve as an antiaircraft platform manned by Navy gun crews until 14 June, and by Army crews after that date. West Honaker's naval gunners were awarded a battle star for participation in the Normandy Landings.