SS ''Dumaru'' was a Design 1003, Hough-type wooden steam ship launched on April 17, 1918, in

Portland, Oregon Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...

, as part of the

United States Shipping Board The United States Shipping Board (USSB) was a corporation established as an emergency agency by the 1916 Shipping Act (39 Stat. 729), on September 7, 1916. The United States Shipping Board's task was to increase the number of US ships supporting ...

Merchant Fleet Corporation. On October 16, 1918, during her maiden voyage, ''Dumaru'' was struck by lightning off the coast of

Guam Guam ( ; ) is an island that is an Territories of the United States, organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. Guam's capital is Hagåtña, Guam, Hagåtña, and the most ...

, igniting her munitions cargo and destroying the ship. All hands were able to evacuate into two lifeboats and one raft prior to ''Dumaru''´s destruction, with the raft and its five passengers, including Captain Ole Berrensen, being rescued nine days later near the site of the sinking. The two lifeboats, one undermanned with only nine of its 20 seats filled and the other severely overcrowded with 32 crewmen aboard, drifted for approximately three weeks across the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

to the

Philippine Islands The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

. The latter boat quickly exhausted its fresh water supply, forcing the crew to construct a crude

water desalination Desalination is a process that removes mineral components from saline water. More generally, desalination is the removal of salts and minerals from a substance. One example is soil desalination. This is important for agriculture. It is possible ...

device and eventually resort to

cannibalism Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is also well document ...

, consuming the bodies of other crewmen who had died of exposure.

References

Bibliography

* * Incidents of cannibalism Steamships of the United States Ships built in Portland, Oregon Shipwrecks in the Pacific Ocean Maritime incidents in 1918 1918 ships {{Merchantship-stub