1944 — Feb 26, storm, US freighter William H. Welch grounds/breaks, reef, Eilean Furadh Mor Isl., Scotland–62

–62 Armed-guard.com. [WWII USN] Armed Guard and…Merchant Marine. “S.S. William H Welch.”
–62 Lettens, Jan. “SS William H. Welch (stern Section) [+1944].” wrecksite.eu, 8-27-2008.
–62 Scottish Shipwrecks (website). “William H Welch.” Accessed 5-30-2021.
–61 American Merchant Marine at War. Chronological List of U.S. Ships Sunk or Damaged…
–35 crew
–23 armed guard
— 3 passengers

Narrative Information

American Merchant Marine at War. Chronological List of U.S. Ships Sunk or Damaged…
“Date Ship Type Cause Result Location Deaths
“02/26/44 William H. Welch Liberty Split Total Loss NE Atlantic Crew 35; AG 23; Passengers 3.”

Armed-guard.com. [WWII USN] Armed Guard and [WWII US] Merchant Marine. “S.S. William H Welch.”:
“The wind was out of the northwest with whole gale force, bringing heavy snow, and sleet. The ship had come in from The Minch and tried to enter Loch Ewe, on the western, Rossshire coast of Scotland. She was loaded only in ballast, high out of the water, hard to handle. When she struck the rough granite shoulder of the island near the loch entrance, she did not have a chance.

“She was the American Liberty ship William H. Welch. It was at 4:20 A.M., February 26, 1944, that she grounded on Fura Island in Black Bay, then instantly began to break in half. She was the vice commodore’s ship, the second in a single file column of ten vessels that formed Convoy EN 50 bound for the Royal Navy base at Aultbea for orders.

“The waves, smashing fifty feet high, cascaded over her wheelhouse topside and flying bridge. The strain upon the hull was intolerable. She snapped in half at 6 A.M., her longitudinals broken along the after side of Number Three hatch. All that kept her together then were her twin antimagnetic mine cables, and they almost instantly parted. The height and fury of the waves made the use of both lifeboats and rafts impossible. The men gathered on the flying bridge.

“The ship’s complement was seventy-four men. Captain Lee Marshall was last seen on the bridge. He was lost with the ship, among sixty-two others. He had done his best. She grounded with such sudden violence that he could do no more than ring down the Full Astern order on the bridge telegraph. That was obeyed, but the engine room was already awash with water that came through the ripped bottom plates. Captain Marshall fired distress flares, and those, despite the vast, twisted sheets of snow, hail and spindrift around the ship, were observed ashore.

“Charles Macdonald, the local Coast Guardsman in charge of the rocket apparatus, was sent to the site to make a line-throwing attempt. But the island where the ship had grounded was a quarter of a mile offshore; the distance was too much for his line to carry.

“White-crested, black and evil waves surged over her, each tearing away a few more of the men who clung to her bridge rail. Macdonald and his companions left the rocket gear and went down the cliffside to the shingle beach. They waded out shoulder-deep into the surf and began hauling in the men who were pitched asprawl, pitifully inert toward the shore.

“The only surviving officer was George L. Smokovich, the second assistant engineer. He reported in a sworn statement the details of the disaster within his knowledge. He said:

At the time we struck bottom, I was in the galley; I had just come off watch. I recall that 4:02 A.M., before I had come up on deck, I had received orders from the bridge for Full Ahead; however, others bells were being given while I was in the galley. I believe we were making Half Speed at the time we hit. I heard a loud noise and the ship suddenly stopped and began quivering. I could hear the telegraph ring Full Astern immediately after the impact. I stayed in the galley until the General Alarm bell rang, which was about two minutes later. An oiler came up and informed me that the engine room was filling rapidly; when I came out on deck I noticed that our ship had a heavy port list and was down by the stern. It was snowing and hailing and the visibility was very poor. I went to my boat station, which was #4; because of the rough seas, it was impossible to launch any of our boats or any of the square rafts.

At 6 A.M. the vessel broke in two across the after end of #3 hatch; the two halves were held together by two torpedo cables. The decks were awash continuously both fore and aft. At daylight rescues were attempted by a British escort tug; however, these were unsuccessful. This tug had fired three lines toward us for the purpose of making a breeches buoy but all three attempts were unsuccessful The water came higher and higher over the ship as the vessel settled. At 10:45 A.M. all the crew were on the flying bridge. At 11:15 A.M. two large waves came over the bridge, smashing the wheelhouse and casting the crew into the water. All the men were wearing life preservers.

I was washed ashore on a high cliff. I swam out again expecting to be picked up but the oncoming seas were so heavy that I was washed back on the cliffs. I was covered with fuel oil and this fuel oil probably saved my life. Two old women came down the steep rocky cliff and carried me to their home four miles away. An ambulance took me to Gairloch Hospital which was seven miles from the accident.

“The women who saved Smokovich were some of the very poor crofter folk who lived out on the open, exposed moor. But word of the disaster had been brought to them from Cove, a hamlet of a couple of crofters’ cottages at the road’s end from Loch Ewe. All of the local people, although isolated in one of the most remote regions of the western Highlands, were extremely aware of the hazards of war.

“The young men of the district, fishermen by trade, were away, serving in the Royal Navy. The majority of the older men worked at the Royal Navy base at Aultbea….

“The effort to save the crew of the William H. Welch was very determined and thorough. There were a few of the older men at home in the vicinity of Cove when the ship grounded. They went at once to the beach and began rescue work….Their women went with them, some wearing men’s seaboots, others heavy brogans.

“The pair of elderly women who saved Smokovich climbed down the cliffside with the wind battering and howling. They carried shawls which held flasks of hot tea and their proudest possessions, their sheer white, very soft blankets, hand-made of Highland wool. The spindrift on the shingle leaped head-high as they went along the shore to Smokovich. He was naked, his lifejacket, his clothing, his shoes stripped from him by the action of the waves he had fought for half an hour. His right arm was fractured, and he had been thrown repeatedly against the granite pinnacles of the cliff. He was an exceptionally strong man, but now the ultimate degrees of his endurance were almost exhausted.

“The women drew him back, beyond the terrible rush of the breakers. They first opened his mouth wide and pulled out the gob of congealed fuel oil, baseball size, that would soon choke him to death. They cleansed his nostrils, his eyes, and his ears. Then they wrapped him closely in the blankets and gave him tea to drink. He stirred, said a few words. But he was past helping himself. He lapsed into coma. The women picked him up, tight in the blankets, a clumsy and difficult weight for the climb up the narrow way along the cliff. Between them, in the snow, the sleet, the wind banging at them, their brogans thick with encrusted fuel oil, they hauled the big man to the top. They crossed the moor through the bogs and fens, the snow gathering fast on the heather. Then, inside their cottage, they let him sag to the floor. One of them had strength left to put peats on the fire and prod it into flame. Tea was heated and given to Smokovich. The women were
fully resolved that he would live…..

“Miss Manwaring’s headquarters were in Glasgow. Loch Ewe and Gairloch Hospital were 250 miles north. She collected five cases of clothing for the survivors, then took the train for Inverness. She reached Gairloch Hospital by truck, across 100 miles of snowy, mountainous roads….She said in her report:

I found our survivors recovering from shock and although their arms and legs were not yet in good condition, the C.O. felt they could join me the following day and go to Glasgow. The men, most of whom were very young, were as excited as kids over their new clothes.

….Then she spoke about the crofter folk, and their intense poverty, completely forgotten during the time of disaster. She mentioned the crofter women’s fine, really irreplaceable blankets, and gave their answer to her question. “What,” they said, “is a blanket more or less when a man is dying?

“The crofters, men and women, walked the snowy track in the bitter weather, made daily visits to see the survivors. Beneath their shawls, the women had a handful of eggs, or a tiny jar of precious jam for ‘the Americans.’ Before the survivors left for Glasgow, the women arrived with a final gift. It was small bunches of flowers, bluebells, the famous bluebells of Scotland.”

Scottish Shipwrecks (website). “William H Welch.” Accessed 5-30-2021:
“The Bethlehem Fairfield shipyard, with its sixteen spacious slipways, was the largest of the emergency yards established to build the liberty ships and was to be the launch site of the first of these utilitarian cargo vessels, ordered and owned by the US War Shipping Administration, which became the lifeline to the British Isles during the Second World War. By the end of the war some three hundred and eighty five of these ships had been built at the yard….

“In February 1944 she left London in water ballast bound for New York. Her route, with the other nine ships of convoy EN50, would take her first to a rendezvous point in Loch Ewe before setting out across the North Atlantic…. As the William H Welch steamed north the weather was not kind and by the time she reached the entrance to Loch Ewe, in the early hours of 26th February, a severe storm from the north east was driving onto the bow of the ship.

“Then she turned east towards the entrance of the loch she broached in enormous seas and was immediately in severe difficulties. Difficult to maneuver due to her empty holds, she was inexorably driven south west towards Eilean Furadh Mor. At 04.20am she struck on a reef on the north side of the island and stuck fast. Huge seas pounded the ship forcing the captain to order his men to the bridge, the highest and therefore safest, part of the ship. The crew fired distress flares and hoped for rescue but they knew their situation was very serious. A British escort tug standing by tried three times to fire a line to the stranded ship but to no avail and she was forced to withdraw to summon additional assistance. At 06.00 disaster struck when the ship finally broke in two under the strain of the pounding. The forward part floated off but the major piece, including the midships accommodation and bridge section remained fast.

“Ashore various teams were assembling to attempt to help. Troops from the Highland Fieldcraft Training Centre at Poolewe were on exercise in the area and they marched towards the wreck site. Local Coastguard, Charles McDonald, had seen the flares and he too set out for the scene. When they reached the nearest point to the wreck there was little they could do but peer through the driving snow and wait to see what happened. Slowly, one by one, the frozen men clinging to the disintegrating ship were washed off the wreck and into the boiling surf. Most failed to make it to the shore or were smashed against the rocks and killed before they could be rescued. Amazingly some did survive to be picked up, exhausted, by the men and women waiting ashore. They had a huge fire burning to warm the men that did survive and soon they were on their way to full medical assistance at the base. The rescuers maintained the vigil that whole day but as darkness fell they had saved only twelve from the crew of seventy four….”

War Shipping Admin. “Scottish Highlanders Rescue SS William H. Welch Survivors.” 5-14-1944:
“Highlighted, by self-sacrificing aid given shipwrecked survivors by Scottish “crofters”, both men and women, the story of the worst storm ship disaster recently suffered by the American Merchant Marine was disclosed by the War Shipping Administration today. It was during a blinding blizzard on the Scotland coast a few weeks ago [February 26, 1944] that the Liberty ship William H. Welch met her end. Five members of the crew and seven Navy gunners were the only survivors in the vessel’s complement of more than 60….

“Crofters, poorest of poor highlanders who eke out meager existences on tiny, bleak farms, left their stone huts in the howling winter weather to help ‘the American sailors’ they learned had been flung upon their jagged coast. First they carried jugs of hot tea, that represented weeks of rations, through hail and sleet and over miles of rocky moors. Finding the few still alive, they made driftwood fires to revive the men exhausted by their battle with the sea and cold. They carried blankets from their own beds to wrap around the frozen survivors….”

Sources

American Merchant Marine at War. Chronological List of Ships Sunk or Damaged during 1944. Accessed 5-30-2021 at: http://www.usmm.org/sunk44.html#anchor412649

Armed-guard.com. World War II U.S. Navy Armed Guard and World War II U.S. Merchant Marine (website). “S.S. William H Welch.” Accessed 5-30-2021 at: https://www.armed-guard.com/ag88.html

Lettens, Jan. “SS William H. Welch (stern Section) [+1944].” wrecksite.eu, 8-27-2008. Accessed 5-30-2021 at: https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?61782

Scottish Shipwrecks (website). “William H Welch.” Accessed 5-30-2021 at: https://www.scottishshipwrecks.com/william-h-welch/

War Shipping Administration. “Scottish Highlanders Rescue SS William H. Welch Survivors.” Advance Release For Sunday Papers May 14, 1944. Accessed 5-30-2021 at: http://www.usmm.org/wsa/welch.html