''Empire Oak'' was a ocean-going tug which was built by Goole Shipbuilding & Repairing Co. Ltd. of

Goole Goole is a port town and civil parish on the River Ouse, Yorkshire, River Ouse in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. The town's Historic counties of England, historic county is the West Riding of Yorkshire. At the 2021 United Kingdom censu ...

. The ship was launched on 15 March 1941 and completed in July 1941. She was torpedoed on 22 August 1941 and sunk by at while a member of

Convoy OG 71 Convoy OG 71 was a trade convoy of merchant ships during the Second World War. It was the 71st of the numbered OG convoys Outbound from the British Isles to Gibraltar. The convoy departed Liverpool on 13 August 1941 and was found on 17 August by ...

. She was armed with a 12-pounder and two Hotchkiss machine guns. She also carried two PAC (parachute and cable) rockets.

Ship history

She sailed from

Oban Oban ( ; meaning ''The Little Bay'') is a resort town within the Argyll and Bute council area of Scotland. Despite its small size, it is the largest town between Helensburgh and Fort William, Highland, Fort William. During the tourist seaso ...

on 15 August 1941, captained by F.E. Christian, and joined

(Outward Gibraltar). On 19 August 1941, she joined the search for survivors from the merchantman ''Alva'' which had been sunk by , and spent approximately an hour searching and picked up several survivors before putting on speed to catch up with the convoy. On returning to the convoy Captain Christian spotted

starshell LaNeah Menzies (born May 27, 1983), known professionally as Starshell, is an American actress, songwriter, social entrepreneur, and recording artist. Life and career Menzies was born to African-American and Brazilian parents and was raised in Lo ...

s going up, on arrival he spotted a number of red lights in the water which he took to be the red lights attached to merchantmen's lifejackets (at this time Royal Navy lifejackets did not). These were survivors from the merchantman ''Aguila'', and after a long search ''Empire Oak'' picked up six crew members. On 22 August 1941, during the night Captain Christian was standing on the starboard wing of the bridge when ''Empire Oak'' was struck by a torpedo fired from on the starboard side of the engine room. She sank within seconds with the captain been washed off the bridge. The

destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy, or carrier battle group and defend them against a wide range of general threats. They were conceived i ...

then launched a

depth charge A depth charge is an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) weapon designed to destroy submarine A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited ...

attack on ''U-564'', the shock waves of which caused distress and injuries to the survivors in the water. Captain Christian was in the water for over two hours with his chief officer plus the chief officer from ''Aguila'' before the

corvette A corvette is a small warship. It is traditionally the smallest class of vessel considered to be a proper (or " rated") warship. The warship class above the corvette is that of the frigate, while the class below was historically that of the sloo ...

found them, unfortunately during the rescue the chief officer from the ''Aguila'' became separated and was lost. ''Empire Oak'' lost 14 out of her 20 crew, she was also carrying 6 survivors from ''Aguila'' and 11 from ''Alva'', nine of these were lost including all from ''Aguila''.

References

{{Empire ships Empire ships 1941 ships Ships sunk by German submarines in World War II World War II shipwrecks in the Atlantic Ocean