USS W. L. Steed (ID-3449) - Commercial Service and Loss (World War II)

Commercial Service and Loss (World War II)

W. L. Steed departed Norfolk, Virginia, under the command of her master, Harold G. McVenia, on 14 January 1942. She made port at Cartagena on 21 January 1942 and there loaded a cargo of 65,396 barrels (10,397.1 m3) of oil in two days, departing on 23 January 1942. She subsequently called at Key West, Florida, for U.S. Navy orders before transiting the Florida Strait.

The voyage proceeded uneventfully until early on the afternoon of 30 January 1942, when a lookout spotted what he thought was a small fishing craft on the port bow. Captain McVenia, soon ascertaining the strange ship to be a submarine lying low on the surface, sounded the general alarm and radioed for help. All hands except the "black gang" -- below in the engine spaces -- manned their boat stations, donned life preservers, and stood by for the worst. The submarine soon disappeared, probably because W. L. Steed's radio message brought a U.S. Navy patrol plane out to take a look.

Over the next two days, though, the weather worsened, making protective aircraft operations particularly difficult. W. L. Steed plodded through the Atlantic swells, occasionally shipping heavy seas that damaged her decks. By 2 February 1942, visibility had shrunk to about two nautical miles (4 km), and snow was falling. Shortly after noon, when W. L. Steed was between 80 and 90 nautical miles (170 km) off the coast of New Jersey, the German submarine U-103 under the command of Werner Winter, already a high scorer in the German U-boat arm with over 30 ships to her credit, poked up her periscope and tracked the plodding tanker. One torpedo soon leapt from the submarine's bow torpedo tubes, sped inexorably toward W. L. Steed, and hit her on her starboard side, forward of the bridge and in number 3 tank. The explosion touched off a fire in the oil drums stored there.

W. L. Steed sent out a hurried SOS and radioed her plight to any ship within hearing. The entire crew of 38 men abandoned ship into the vessel's four lifeboats. U-103 surfaced soon thereafter and closed the burning tanker as she slowly sank by the bow. The Germans soon manned their deck gun and commenced firing, pumping 17 shells into the stern of the tanker to hasten her demise while her crew watched from the nearby boats. After W. L. Steed slipped beneath the chill waves of the North Atlantic, U-103 stood briefly toward the survivors before shaping a course away in a southwesterly direction.

The U-boat's departure left the four boats alone in the frigid waters. They drifted apart and, one by one, the ill-clad sailors began to succumb to the cold. W. L. Steed had been abandoned with such haste that hardly any of the men had had time to enter the boats prepared to face the bitter winter snowstorm and the biting northeasterly winds.

One boat was never found. The British steamer SS Hartlepool rescued two men from the second boat on 4 February 1942, but one later died. The Canadian armed merchant cruiser HMCS Alcantara picked up three men from the third boat on 6 February 1942, including the senior surviving officer, Second Mate Sydney Wayland. On 12 February 1942, the British merchantman Raby Castle came across the fourth and last of W. L. Steed's boats, containing four men, but of whom only one was alive, suffering much from exposure. Brought aboard Raby Castle, that man -- Second Assistant Engineer Elmer E. Maihiot, Jr. -- died on 15 February 1942, and was buried at sea. Thus, only four men out of the 38 aboard W. L. Steed survived her encounter with U-103.

W. L. Steed was the second Standard Oil tanker sunk during World War II.