Caribou (ship, 1925)
 Postage stamp from 1928
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
The Caribou was a 1925 in service ferry , the government of Newfoundland owned and passengers and cargo for the railroad Newfoundland Railway transported. She commuted between Port aux Basques on the southwest tip of Newfoundland and North Sydney in Nova Scotia . On October 14, 1942, the Caribou , which had 237 people on board, was torpedoed in Cabotstrasse by the German U 69 submarine without warning and sank within five minutes. 137 passengers and crew were killed, including dozens of women and children. It was one of the greatest disasters in Newfoundland during World War II and the worst shipwreck to date in the Cabot Strait.
The ship
The 2,222 GRT steamship Caribou was built at the Rotterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij (New Waterway Shipbuilding Company) shipyard in Schiedam (Netherlands). It was owned by the government of the Crown Colony of Newfoundland , which they made available to the Newfoundland Railway, founded in 1898. As part of the Newfoundland's Government Ferry Service, the Caribou carried passengers and cargo from Port aux Basques to North Sydney. Construction costs were $ 500,000.
It was launched on June 9, 1925, and on October 10 of the same year the finished ship left for St. John's, where it arrived on October 22. The bow of the Caribou was appointed because of the high Eisvorkommens on the coast of Newfoundland icebreaking constructed. In addition to its passenger service, the ship was used seasonally for seal hunts on the coast of Newfoundland.
The 84.3 meter long Caribou could transport 400 passengers and 1,100 tons of cargo. Their cabins were equipped with heaters and electric light , which was not yet standard on ferries at the time. It had six lifeboats, each with a capacity of 50 people, 300 cork life jackets, 12 life buoys, 20 first aid boxes and 14 emergency rafts . The four-cylinder triple expansion steam engines developed 6,000 hp and enabled a speed of 14.5 knots.
In early July 1942, the last safety inspection by representatives of the Canadian Steamship Inspection and the Newfoundland government took place in St. John's. In the course of this, many parts of the emergency equipment were repaired or replaced.
The last ride
Depart from North Sydney
On Tuesday, October 13, 1942, at around 9:30 p.m., the Caribou set off in North Sydney under the command of Captain Benjamin Taverner (61) for another crossing to Port aux Basques. There were 46 crew members and 191 passengers on board, a total of 237 people. A total of 118 members of the Canadian and US military were among the passengers. The remaining 73 people were civilians, including eleven children. The crew also included the captain's two sons, Stanley (34) and Harold Graham Taverner (24). The third son had resigned from work on the Caribou two months earlier. 50 cattle and 1,450 mail bags were also accommodated in the ship's hold on this voyage.
Passengers included Hugh B. Gillis, mine inspector for Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation (died), William J. Lundrigan, founder of construction company WJ Lundrigan Ltd. (survived) and John C. Moore, Newfoundland Railway ticket agent (survived). While the passengers were being brought to their cabins by the stewards, they were immediately told which lifeboat they had to go to in an emergency. After boarding , Captain Taverner ordered the passengers on deck and carried out a rescue exercise. He knew of the existing submarine threat; In recent weeks, German submarines had sunk numerous ships on the Canadian east coast and penetrated into the Saint Lawrence River . On the previous crossing, the Caribou itself only narrowly escaped a submarine attack.
The ferry drove in the convoy NL-9, which consisted of a total of seven ships and had Québec as its final destination. It was from the HMCS Grandmere , a deminer the Bangor class of the Royal Canadian Navy under the command of Lieut. James SC Cuthbert accompanied. The Grandmére had a crew of 45 on board and could make speeds of up to 15 knots. It was equipped with Asdic but not with a radar system. According to the Western Approach Convey Instructions, an instruction of the Royal Canadian Navy to merchant ships, the Grandmére should have traveled a quarter of a mile behind the Caribou . The captains of the two ships thought it better that the Caribou follow the escort. However, Taverner followed the instruction to keep the ship darkened during the entire voyage so as not to attract attention.
Countersunk by U 69
Less than six hours after departure, at 3:21 a.m. on October 14, the Caribou was sighted by the German submarine U 69 on Cabot Street 20 miles southwest of Channel Head . The submarine was under the command of the 26-year-old Kapitänleutnant Ulrich Graef on its ninth patrol and had reached Cabotstrasse on September 30th. There were heavy seas , force 4 winds and an air temperature of 12.2 degrees Celsius . The submarine's lookout had noticed the ship because of its heavy smoke emissions. In addition, the Caribou caught the attention of the submarine, as it drove without lights and thus made itself suspicious. Had it been illuminated, Gräf might have refrained from attacking, as the Caribou was clearly marked as a civilian ship.
Lieutenant Gräf did not know the identity of the Caribou . He thought the ship was a freighter and the Grandmére a destroyer . He brought his submarine into a suitable position and gave the order to attack. At around 3.30 a.m., U 69 shot down a torpedo that hit the engine room on the starboard side of the unarmed ship and killed almost all of the machinists present. The force of the detonation caused a deep crack in the ship's hull , which almost divided the caribou in half. The sleeping passengers were thrown from their beds, furniture began to move and glass broke everywhere. The lights went out almost immediately and passengers had to find their way through the corridors in the dark. There were other shocks than in the boiler room , the boiler began to explode. The Caribou leaned to starboard and began to sink rapidly.
Immediately a great panic broke out. The evacuation of the Caribou was problematic because the two lifeboats on the starboard side and the radio antenna were damaged by the explosion . The two boats on the port side were lowered into the water before the plugs were inserted into the corresponding holes in the floor. They ran full of water, capsized and drowned. The other two lifeboats, which were attached to the stern of the caribou , could not be lowered into the water because they were overcrowded with fearful passengers before they could be swung over the deck edge. The people were not persuaded to climb out of the boats. Both lifeboats and their occupants went down with the caribou .
As a result, most passengers only had to jump off the ship as a rescue. After a short time, the surrounding water was full of debris, swimmers and the remains of the crashed boats. Five minutes after the attack, the caribou broke in two and sank. The Grandmére tried to ram U 69 , but the submarine submerged too quickly. The mine clearer then opened fire on the submarine. After a while, the Grandmére gave up the chase and began taking in the castaways after dawn , which dragged on for several hours. A total of nine other ships from the communities of Port aux Basques, Grand Bay and Isle aux Morts went in search of more survivors, but could not find anyone.
137 people were killed in the sinking, including 31 crew members, 57 members of the military and 49 passengers. Captain Taverner and his two sons were among the dead. 103 survivors were taken in by the Grandmére and brought to North Sydney that same day. Two of them died while driving. There were 100 survivors (15 crew members, 61 military personnel, 24 passengers). 15-month-old Leonard Shiers was the only one of the eleven children who survived the demise. Five families were completely wiped out. Only 34 bodies were recovered afterwards. Most of the people on board came from the region around Port aux Basques.
Of the 17 ships sunk by the U 69 , the Caribou was the last and at the same time the one with the greatest number of fatalities.
Others
The sinking of the Caribou was one of the greatest catastrophes in Newfoundland during World War II and the worst shipping accident to date in the Cabot Strait. The ferry Burgeo (1,421 GRT) put into service in 1940 was used as a replacement on the Caribou route. Night voyages have ceased and civilian ships have been instructed by the Canadian Navy to zigzag during the voyage .
The Caribou ferry of the Marine Atlantic shipping company, which went into service in 1986 , was named after her. On her maiden voyage on May 12, 1986, the new Caribou stopped at the point where her predecessor had sunk. Mack Piercey, one of 13 survivors of the sinking aboard, threw a funeral wreath into the water.
Among the fatalities was Agnes Wightman Wilkie, 38-year-old Royal Canadian Navy nurse , deputy head nurse at HMCS Avalon Marine Hospital in St. John's. Her body was found and buried with full honors in Mount Pleasant Cemetery in St. John's. In 1953, the Agnes Wilkie Memorial Medal for General Proficiency was awarded for the first time at the Misericordia School of Nursing, where Wilkie graduated. In 1957, Lake Wilkie in Manitoba was named after her. She was the only nurse in all three Canadian armed forces (Army, Air Force, Navy) to be killed by enemy action during World War II.
At McGill University in Montreal each year which will grant The Edgar Raymond Martin Memorial Scholarship awarded in Music. This scholarship was introduced by Helen MacLeod in memory of her brother Edgar Martin, a student who in 1941 with the academic degree of Bachelor of Science from McGill University and graduated at the age of 19 years with the sinking of the Caribou was killed.
On March 31, 1949, the Dominion Newfoundland became the 10th province of the Canadian Confederation . National Railway was then taken over by the Class 1 railway company Canadian National Railway . One of National Railway's most famous passenger trains , The Overland Limited , was renamed Caribou as part of the takeover . He remained in service until 1969.
After the disaster, at least three songs were written in Newfoundland on the subject of the sinking of the Caribou .
literature
- H. Thornhill. It Happened in October: The Tragic Sinking of the SS Caribou . 1945
- Cassie Brown. The Caribou Disaster . Flanker Press, 2000
- Jack Fitzgerald. Newfoundland Disasters . Creative Publishers, 2005
Web links
- The Last Voyage of the SS Caribou - Essay by Henry K. Gibbons
- Sinking of the Caribou
- Summary on www.iosphere.net ( Memento from May 29, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- 1992 video from the archive of the CBC News including interviews with survivors
- The Caribou on http://uboat.net
- List of fatalities
- List of survivors
- SS Caribou's Last Surviving Crew Member Dies, Sunday, February 17, 2008