ACTIVITY: Sea disaster
CASE: GSAF 1942.07.00
DATE: Sometime between July
11 and July 24, 1942
LOCATION: The sinking took
place in the Atlantic Ocean at
19º20'N, 53º18'W
NAME: Miller
DESCRIPTION:
seaman.
He
was
a
BACKGROUND: At 15h52 on
June 27, 1942, a torpedo from the German submarine U-153 (Reichmann) struck the port
quarter of the 6,065-ton SS Potlach, Captain John J. LaPoint, near the engine room and
caused such a violent explosion that survivors thought the ship had been hit by two
torpedoes. Deck cargo was blown away, deck plates buckled and the ship sank in less than
five minutes. The port lifeboat went down with the ship, but the starboard lifeboat was
launched. The 49 survivors abandoned ship, some reaching the lifeboat, others on four rafts
towed by the lifeboat. The sub surfaced after the attack and circled amid the wreckage,
retrieving tires from the deck cargo then pulled alongside the lifeboat and gave them
directions to the nearest land — directions which proved false. Captain LaPoint, lacking any
navigation instruments, was forced to steer by the sun and stars.
The survivors sailed and drifted for 49 days, running out of food on the 17th day, and on
water on the 18th day. As men died, the rafts were cast off until all remaining survivors were
in the lifeboat. On the 28th day, they landed on Little Inagua, an uninhabited island and
found water by following wild jackasses. Two days later they sailed to Acklins Island,
reaching there on July 29, 1942. From there, they were taken to Nassau on board the yacht
of Betty Carstairs, reaching mainland USA some 39 days after their ship was torpedoed.
NARRATIVE: Some of the men who survived the sinking perished. One of them was a
seaman named Miller. As he as cleaning a fish he had caught, a shark bit his arm.
INJURY: “The others believed the shark bite hurried his death.”
SPECIES: Not identified.
SOURCES: Kingsport Times, Thursday August 6, 1942; Captain Arthur R. Moore (1983), A
Careless Word...A needless Sinking, pages 225-226; Jürgen Rohwer (1983), Axis
Submarine Successes 1939-1945, page 106
© Global Shark Accident File, 1994. All rights reserved. This report may not be abridged or
reproduced in any form without written permission of the Global Shark Accident File.
Indiana Evening Gazette
Thursday, August 6, 1942
© Global Shark Accident File, 1994. All rights reserved. This report may not be abridged or
reproduced in any form without written permission of the Global Shark Accident File.