SS Fort Lee

SS Fort Lee

SS Fort Lee was a T2 tanker built for the United States Maritime Commission during World War II. The ship was assigned by the War Shipping Administration for operation by the Bernuth Lembcke Co. and operated in the Atlantic and Mediterranean early in its career.

Fort Lee was torpedoed and sunk by the German Kriegsmarine submarine U-181 in the Indian Ocean on 2 November 1944. Nine men aboard Fort Lee were killed during the attack. Three of the four successfully launched lifeboats were rescued by other ships within two weeks. The fate of the fourth lifeboat, with 16 men aboard, was unearthed by researchers in 2000. The boat had drifted 2,850 miles (2,480 nmi; 4,590 km) over 10 weeks before landing on Japanese-held Sumba Island with three men remaining. All three perished in custody of the Japanese.

Read more about SS Fort Lee:  Operational History

Famous quotes containing the words fort and/or lee:

    How often we read that the enemy occupied a position which commanded the old, and so the fort was evacuated! Have not the school-house and the printing-press occupied a position which commands such a fort as this?
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    The President’s proclamation took the breath out of me this morning. He is in the hands of the Phillistines [sic] ...
    —Elizabeth Blair Lee (1818–?)