Hazards Bubble Up from Old Wrecks-- Part 1

From the July 27th Chicago Tribune by Frank D. Roylance.

World War Ii was on and on the evening of Feb. 2, 1942, the W.L. Steed, an unarmed tanker was cruising along the Atlantic Ocean, about 90 miles off Ocean City, Maryland with 66,000 barrels of crude oil, when a German U-boat torpedoed it.

The ship was soon ablaze and sank with only a few of the 38 crew members surviving.

Shortly after the US entered the war after Pearl Harbor, the Germans moved part of their submarine pack to off the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the country. By te time they shifted most of the U-boats in July to focus on convoys crossing the Atlantic, they had sunk 397 ships in US coastal waters.

Many Americans today don't even know about this war off American shores.

This wartime legacy has become an environmental concern because of concern about fuel bunkers and cargoes starting to leak after all those years under water.

I have already written about the SS Montebello (see Oct. 3rd entry) sunk by a Japanese submarine off the coast of California and the fear that its cargo of oil poses a threat. Fortunately, expeditions to the ship have found no trace of the oil that it once carried.

A Problem from the Past. --DaCoot