Namibia: West Coast shipwrecks: "Pede A Deus" & "SS Point Pleasant Park" | Кораблекрушения у западного побережья Намибии
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NAMIBIA
SKELETON COAST NATIONAL PARK
SHIPWRECKS
72.1. "Pede A Deus"
Date: 1969
Conception Bay
This motor powered fishing vessel foundered at sea north of Conception Bay.
73. "SS Point Pleasant Park"
Date: 23.02.1945
SS Point Pleasant Park, a merchant steamship, was torpedoed 300 miles off the Namibian coast on February 23, 1945 by the German submarine U-510, skippered by Kapitänleutnant Alfred Eick. Nine men were killed instantly, but the remaining crew were able to reach Luderitz on lifeboats or were eventually rescued by another ship. Point Pleasant Park was the last vessel sunk in South African waters during the Second World War. Point Pleasant was built by the Canadian Park Steamship Company Limited, a Crown Corporation set up in 1942 to aid the Allied war effort by building and operating cargo ships to replace those lost to enemy action and ensure an ample flow of supplies to Allied forces. The ship was a 10,000 ton version of the Canadian Park ship program, a design similar to the American Liberty ships. She was built at Davie Ship Building & Repair Co. Ltd. at Lauzon, Quebec and entered service the 8 November 1943. The ship was named after Point Pleasant Park in Halifax, Nova Scotia, following the tradition of naming Park ships after Canadian wilderness and recreation parks. Owner: Furness Withy (Canada) Ltd, Montreal.
Operator: Park Steamship Co Ltd (1943), Witherington & Everett (1944).
Port of registry: Montreal. Builder: Davie Ship Building & Repair Co. Ltd. Tonnage: 2,878 GRT, 1,653 NRT. Length: 315 ft 5 in (96.14 m). Beam: 46 ft 5 in (14.15 m). Depth: 22 ft 9 in (6.93 m). Installed power: triple expansion steam engine. Propulsion: screw propeller. Crew: 34, plus 4 DEMS gunners. Armament: 1 x 4 inch deck gun aft, 1 x 3 inch (76 mm)/50 caliber gun, 4 x 20 mm Oerlikon, 2 x Twin .50 cal. Machine Guns
20 x Rail Anti-Aircraft Rocket Launcher (Pillar Box). Point Pleasant had mostly British officers, led by Captain John Everall, but otherwise the crew were Canadian. She left Montreal on 5 December 1943, bound for Cape Town, South Africa. She stopped at Halifax for minor engine repairs and while there, the mayor of Halifax, John Lloyd, presented Captain Everall, with a framed picture of the ornate gates to Point Pleasant which was hung in the officer's dining room aboard the ship. The Halifax Herald featured the ship on its front page in honour of the connection between the city's landmark park and the war effort. The ship left Halifax in a convoy on 9 December 1943, stopping at New York City and then Port of Spain, Trinidad where she refueled and continued in convoy. Off the coast of Brazil, she was detached from the convoy to sail alone to Cape Town arriving in early February 1944. The ship then called on Port Elizabeth, East London, Durban in South Africa and Beira, Mozambique before returning to Cape Town with a cargo of sugar. Point Pleasant sailed next to Lagos, Nigeria and collected a cargo of palm oil, peanuts and cocoa for Montreal where she arrived on 19 June 1944. Most of her crew re-enlisted for her second voyage, an indication of a happy ship, and she left Montreal on 3 July 1944 repeating a similar voyage in convoy as far as Brazil and then unescorted to Cape Town, East London and Durban before loading a cargo of manganese ore from Takoradi, Ghana which she delivered to Philadelphia. Point Pleasant arrived in Saint John, New Brunswick on 18 December 1944. There Captain Everall took another command.
This class of "Park" ship carried four life boats, two small ones on either side of the Captain's deck, just below the bridge, and two larger ones on either side of the engine room. The smaller boats could hold about twelve people and the larger ones about twenty. The smaller one on the port side of the bridge was manned by the First Mate and a designated crew. The boat on the starboard side was commanded by the Third Mate. The large boat on the port side of the engine room was the Captain's, and had an engine. The fourth boat was the Second Mate's. The torpedo blast had destroyed the ship's radio antenna so no distress call could be sent out. The lifeboats plotted a course for the coast of South West Africa (Namibia), over 300 miles (480 km) away. The two life boats soon lost sight of each other. In one boat 21 sailors were crowded in space made for 11 or 12. Daily rations were 2 ounces of water per man, two spoons of pemmican (hard grain mixed with fat), two biscuits and a small piece of chocolate. The overcrowded boats endured blistering sun and survived a significant storm. The survivors were comforted when the Southern Cross constellation, which appeared each night, showed they were on course. Captain Owens and 19 crew members made landfall at Mercury Island on Namibia's Skeleton Coast on 2 March. There the fishing vessel Boy Russell found them, and took them to Luderitz, South West Africa. The South African naval trawler HMSAS Africana found the other lifeboat on 4 March, north of Spencer Bay. Africana landed the 29 crew members she had rescued, many injured, at Walvis Bay, South West Africa. After recovery in hospital, the survivors went by rail to Cape Town and eventually made their way back to Canada via the United States. The nine dead are: Joseph Bayliss (age 18), Alfred Malmberg (age 19), Leslie Toth (age 20), Louis Wilkinson (age 21), Patrick Guthrie (age 24), Frederick Breen (age 29), George Edwards (age 34), Ronald Hallahan (age 54), Robert Munroe (age 39).
