SS Black Falcon

SS ''Mary Luckenbach'', was a cargo ship of the United States Navy. She was launched in 1918 and completed the following year by the American International Shipbuilding Corp., Hog Island, Pennsylvania as USS ''Sac City'' (ID-3861).

Service history

The U.S. Navy commissioned USS ''Sac City'' on 6 January 1919. At the end of January 1919, the ship sailed from Norfolk, Virginia, with a cargo destined for Montevideo, Uruguay. The ship arrived at Montevideo at the beginning of March 1919. She moved to the nearby port of Rosario, and loaded a private commercial cargo, which she took to Gibraltar. She sailed to New York City from Gibraltar in June 1919.

''Sac City'' was decommissioned on 17 June 1919 and transferred to the United States Shipping Board. She then entered commercial service as SS ''Sac City''.

''Sac City'' ran aground in the Scheldt at Walsoorden, Zeeland, the Netherlands, on 9 December 1926. She was refloated on 16 December 1926.

On 11 March 1927, ''Sac City'' was steaming in New York Harbor in dense fog when she collided with the Morgan Line cargo ship . ''El Sol'', inbound to New York with a $1,000,000 cargo of pig iron, copper, and bales of cotton, was maneuvering into position to anchor to wait for the fog to lift when the collision occurred at about 07:45. ''Sac City'' hit a glancing blow to ''El Sol'', bounced off, and then struck ''El Sol'' a second time, ripping through ''El Sol's'' plating. ''Sac Citys bow had some slight damage, but ''El Sol'' sank quickly in about of water about a half-mile (800 m) south of the Statue of Liberty. Out of ''El Sol'''s crew of 45 men, 44 were rescued; the ship's carpenter, who could not swim, was last seen clutching the ship's rail as it went below the surface. ''El Sol'' settled on the bottom at a 45° angle with only the tops of her masts protruding above the surface. In hearings before the United States Steamboat Inspection Service, the captain of ''Sac City'' and Captain Charles H. Knowles of ''El Sol'' both were cleared of wrongdoing in the collision, and the blame was laid on the heavy fog.

During her subsequent commercial service, the ship was sold to the Black Diamond Steamship Company and renamed SS ''Black Falcon'' in 1932. She was later sold to the Luckenbach Steamship Co. of New York and renamed SS ''Mary Luckenbach'' in 1941.

In September 1942, ''Mary Luckenbach'' was part of Convoy PQ 18, a convoy of 40 merchant ships under heavy escort transiting the Barents Sea en route Murmansk in the Soviet Union. On 14 September 1942 (some sources list 13 September), the convoy was west of North Cape, Norway, when ''Mary Luckenbach'' was attacked by several German Junkers 88 torpedo bomber aircraft and was hit by an aerial torpedo. The impact of the torpedo detonated the ship's cargo of 1,000 tons of TNT, vaporizing her along with her entire crew of 41 and the 24 personnel of the United States Navy Armed Guard assigned to her. Her sinking is described in the memoir of Robert Hughes, a gunnery officer on HMS ''Scylla''. The last known location of the ship was at .

References

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Mary Luckenbach (Ak-15)
Hog Islanders
Design 1022 ships
1918 ships
Design 1022 ships of the United States Navy
Maritime incidents in 1926
Maritime incidents in 1927
World War II auxiliary ships of the United States
Ships sunk by German aircraft
World War II shipwrecks in the Arctic Ocean
Maritime incidents in September 1942
Ships lost with all hands
Merchant ships sunk by aircraft