The loss of the SS Samtampa and Edward, Prince of Wales lifeboat along with 47 men at Sker Point, near Porthcawl, on April 23, 1947, was the worst Welsh maritime disaster of modern times.
As the 70th anniversary approaches Abby Bolter looks at what caused the tragedy
The year is 1947 and, despite winning the war, Britain remains impoverished and in the grip of rationing.
Food shortages and living conditions get worse still with the onset of one of the worst winters on record.
From late January to mid March, Britain shivered under huge snow drifts and temperatures barely climbed above 0C during the day. Food, electricity and gas shortages were the result. Transport and industry were paralysed.
This was followed by the big thaw which brought flooding. Deep Atlantic depressions battered the country with damaging gales.
The Met Office’s official report from April of that year noted: “Gales occurred very frequently for the time of year, the stormiest periods being the 5th-8th and 20th-25th.”
There were 39 crew on board
It was in the early hours of April 19, one day before the start of the latter stormy period, that the Liberty ship of 7,219 tonnes and 423 feet, the steamship Samtampa, left Middlesbrough in good weather bound for Newport, where it was due for a refit.
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The vessel carrying 39 crew members – it would have been 40 but one crew member had been taken ill – was due to sail into Newport on the am tide on Tuesday, April 22. She never arrived.
The steel cargo ship was one of 2,710 Liberty ships or EC2-type vessels – the EC stood for Emergency Cargo – which had been built in the US during World War Two to keep the British and the Allies supplied with materials to fight the war.
Branded “ugly ducklings” by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who also said they would bring liberty to Europe and thus giving them their name, the ships were based on a simple design produced by British shipbuilder J L Thompson and Sons of Sunderland. But the Americans adapted the design to ensure the vessels could be produced in a matter of weeks – faster than the German U-boats could sink them. This meant that riveting was largely replaced and the ships were constructed by welding together pre-fabricated sections.
The ship had been welded together, not riveted
Ceri Joseph, secretary of Porthcawl Museum on John Street in the town – which has just launched a new display on the SS Samtampa disaster and the loss of the Edward, Prince of Wales lifeboat – said the liberty ships were all given the designation SAM in their name as it stands for super structure aft of midships.
She said three sections were welded together to create the vessels, a design feature which would later play a part in the disaster at Sker Point.
It has also been recorded that some of the Liberty ships suffered cracks due to the grade of steel used, which an engineering professor at Cambridge, Constance Tipper, found became brittle after being exposed to freezing temperatures in the North Atlantic. And because the ships had been welded and not riveted, the cracks were able to spread over large areas. However, this design flaw does not appear to have played a part in the disaster and was not mentioned as part of the official inquiry.
Originally known as the SS Peleg Wadsworth – named after an American officer during the American Revolutionary War – the vessel was built by the New England Shipbuilding Corporation at South Portland, Maine, and was launched on December 12, 1943.
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Sent to Britain under the Lend-Lease programme, which saw the US provide Britain with hardware to fight the war, the ship became the property of the Crown represented by the Minister of Transport and was managed by Houlder Bros and co. She was renamed Samtampa.
She remained an operational cargo vessel after the war and left Middlesbrough on the morning of April 19 under the command of Captain Henry Neale Sherwell and was in ballast. According to the official inquiry report she carried about 182 tonnes of permanent ballast “but there was no evidence as to the disposal of the water ballast”, which it surmised must have been on board because of the depth the ship sat in the water – 10ft 6in forward and 15ft 6in aft.
The Samtampa was also carrying 608 tonnes of fuel oil as it had two oil-fired boilers.
Conditions soon turned
After the Samtampa left port the weather deteriorated. The official inquiry report stated she was probably spotted passing Flamborough Head in the north east of England at 7.45am on April 19, but restricted visibility meant they couldn’t be sure.
She was not seen again by any shore station until she passed Hartland Point – a rocky outcrop on the north western tip of the Devon coast – at 8am on the morning of April 23. It was at this point that gale warnings were broadcast, but they were not ungraded to “exceptional” until half an hour later.
Samtampa’s progress had already been impeded by the worsening weather as she made her way around the English coast, with the captain revising their arrival time in Newport three times eventually settling on an estimated arrival time of 2pm on April 23.
But by lunchtime it was becoming clear the Samtampa had little chance of completing its journey in the storm and the captain sent a wireless message to another vessel, the Empire Success, at 12.53pm stating they would seek shelter at a Devon headland called Foreland Point.
Nothing more was heard from the Samtampa until 3.14pm when she sent an urgent signal that she was drifting across the channel to Nash Shoal.
During the course of her research into the disaster Ceri was assisted by the volunteer HM coastguards in Porthcawl, including Alison Missen, and the RNLI, including Ross Martin. She learned that during the afternoon of April 23 the ship was caught out by a weather phenomenon that few, except those who are very familiar with the Bristol Channel, know about.
“The RNLI have told me that if there’s a gale the wind will come so far down the channel in one direction and then swirl and turn sharp east and pull ships that way,” she said.
“It has been known that these sort of exceptional storms can do this and it did that day.”
'The wind was recorded about eight miles away as force nine to 11'
As for the speed of the wind, the RNLI has told Ceri they believe it raged up to a force 12, upwards of 64 knots or 74 mph and officially classed as hurricane force.
The official inquiry report stated conditions were “exceptionally severe”.
“Visibility was limited by rain and mist,” the report states.
“The wind was recorded about eight miles away as force nine to 11 and one master whose vessel was in the vicinity stated that in 28 years’ sea experience he had encountered such weather in or near the United Kingdom only twice before. The sea was exceedingly rough, as to be expected in such a gale.”
Ceri believes the conditions must have been unique in order to wrong foot a crew which, although there were some teenage apprentices among their number, was largely made up of older men who could have served on the North Atlantic convoys during the war.
SOS: 'Please send assistance'
The lack of ballast, which meant the ship sat too high in the water, also left it hard to control and at the mercy of the elements. But, contrary to rumours at the time, the ship’s engine did not fail and did not contribute to the disaster.
At 3.54pm Captain Sherwell messaged that the vessel, now sitting off the Welsh coast, had both anchors down. Just a few minutes later he sent a further urgent message giving the Samtampa’s position as around two-and-a-half miles off Porthcawl.
Just half an hour later it appears he knew what fate the Samtampa would suffer. The Samtampa sent out an SOS: “Fear cables will not hold much longer. Please send assistance.”
And then, just eight minutes later at 4.38pm, another message from the stricken vessel said the starboard anchor had been carried away and the Samtampa was drifting ashore. The port anchor was carried away by the sea 12 minutes later.
Ship's fateful last message
At 5.08pm the Samtampa sent an SOS stating she was aground. This was followed by another message six minutes later stating the vessel was breaking up and the crew would be leaving shortly. It was the last anyone heard from the crew.
The Station Officer of the Coastguard Station at Porthcawl, G Shepherd, had been on scene from around 3.45pm, firstly going to Rest Bay from where he watched the Samtampa to see where she was likely to come ashore and the rescue equipment, which was kept three miles away, would be needed.
At 4.55pm he sent an order calling for the lifesaving equipment – rocket propelled lines and a breeches buoy rope rescue device – to be sent to Sker Point.
Earlier that afternoon the information had been relayed to the Mumbles lifeboat Edward, Prince of Wales – Porthcawl did not have a lifeboat station at that time – and it was launched shortly after 4pm. But it had to return and pull alongside the slipway to get updated information on the Samtampa’s position and left for a second time at 5.10pm. It was the last time the crew was seen alive.
Tragically, the official report noted that as Mumbles is some 12 miles away from Sker Point and the Samtampa was already aground when they left, they never had a real chance of saving the crew.
Ceri said the eight men of the Mumbles lifeboat crew, led by William John Gammon, “are the most brave men I can possibly think of” as, knowing how far away they were, the severity of the conditions and the chances of success, they left the station regardless “to see what they could do”.
Bystanders recall hearing the screams
At Sker Point coastguards – including the late John David, then just 17, who would become chairman of Porthcawl Museum, donating artefacts he rescued from the wreck of the Samtampa – could hear the screams of the Samtampa’s men.
They made three attempts to fire rockets at the wreck, which was just 500 yards away, in the hope of setting up a breeches buoy but the hurricane-force wind – gusts of 88mph were recorded around this time in Aberporth – blew the lines back to the shore.
They could only watch as the vessel broke into three pieces – the three that had been welded together in the US – and the fuel oil poured out covering everything around them, including their rescue equipment and their clothes.
The Samtampa had its own rocket-fired lines but there is no evidence the crew attempted to use this and the official inquiry found it would not have worked anyway due to the weather conditions.
But Ceri has uncovered evidence that the crew did try to launch the Samtampa’s own lifeboats.
The crew did not die through drowning
“A lady came into the museum and said she worked at the Rest Home at Rest Bay, a convalescence hotel, and on that particular night she was sent to Sker Farm to get milk.
“She said she saw the lifeboat turn over. But that was the Samtampa trying to launch their own lifeboats. They had tried to launch them and they were tipping over. That was before the Samtampa hit the rocks.”
All hope of salvation for the Samtampa’s crew faded as darkness fell.
At daybreak on April 24 all 39 crew members were found to have perished. But they had not drowned in the raging sea. They had been suffocated by the fuel oil that had bled out of the ruptured hull.
'You could taste the oil in the air'
Just 300 yards away from the broken Samtampa the Mumbles lifeboat was found upside down on the rocks. Its crew members; William Gammon, 48, William Noel, 42, William Richard Scourfield Thomas, 48, William Ronald Thomas, 34, William Gilbert Davies, 42, Richard Henry Smith, 35, William Lewis Howell, 32 and Ernest Griffin, 52, had also died.
Such had been the severity of the storm that people living in Bridgend, Porthcawl, Kenfig Hill and neighbouring Port Talbot reported their windows were splattered with the Samtampa’s fuel oil.
Ceri said she has now discovered that homes as far away as Barry Island were also affected.
She said: “A lady called Hilary Richards, who was nine at the time and living in Nottage in Porthcawl, also told me that the day after the tragedy she was coming home from school and she said you could taste the oil and the salt in your mouth because it was just in the air in Porthcawl.”
One small survivor
In the days following the loss of the Samtampa and Edward, Prince of Wales, the bodies were recovered. The lifeboat crew were buried at Oystermouth Cemetery and a mass grave for 12 of the Samtampa’s victims, who mostly came from the north east of England, was created at Porthcawl Cemetery.
The only survivor was the ship’s cat, who Ceri said was found in the wreck by the police and given to someone local to look after.
The lifeboat was burned on the rocks a few days after the tragedy and much of the Samtampa was salvaged, although the engine remains and can still be seen at low tide at Sker Point. A commemorative plaque is also set in the rocks where the vessels foundered.
The official inquiry found the loss of the Samtampa was no-one’s fault, although it did find the vessel’s “light condition” made it unmanageable in such severe weather.
Ceri agrees.
“It’s a true tragedy,” she said.
Here's what's happening to mark the 70th anniversary of the disaster:
• There will be a maritime exhibition at Porthcawl Museum on John Street in the town, which also features a number of artefacts from the Samtampa and Edward, Prince of Wales, which have never been displayed publicly before. Go to www.porthcawlmuseum.com
• On April 22 a church service in remembrance of the crews of the Samtampa and the Edward, Prince of Wales, will be held at All Saints Church, Porthcawl, at 3pm.
• Porthcawl Shout Forum is holding a two-week exhibition at the Senedd in Cardiff from April 24 to May 8, after which it will move to the Waterfront Museum in Swansea for six weeks.
• On May 3, Porthcawl Shout Forum is also holding a special commemorative event at the Senedd, which will be hosted by their patron, First Minister Carwyn Jones. School children from Middlesbrough, Mumbles and Porthcawl will be performing along with students from Bridgend College and a variety of community groups
• Later this year the Porthcawl Shout Forum’s Samtampa project will be completed with the installation of the Savage Sea memorial to the disaster at Porthcawl Harbour.