# SS Dixie Arrow

SS Dixie Arrow was an American steam oil tanker built in 1921 by New York Shipbuilding Corporation and owned by Socony-Vacuum Oil Co. For two decades, the ship carried petroleum and other oil products to and from the Far East, North America, and the gulf and east coasts of the United States. She regularly transferred owners and operators during her twenty years of service. Dixie Arrow was torpedoed and sunk off of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina on March 26, 1942, by the German submarine U-71.

## Construction

Following the outbreak of World War I, Standard Oil of New York (Socony) began development of a new class of oil tanker. Named the Arrow-class, construction on the ships first began in 1916. A total of twelve ships would be constructed by multiple companies over the course of the next five years until 1921. All twelve ships were designed by Nicholas Pluymert, a naval architect who was the head of Socony's Marine Transportation Department. The final ship of the class, yard number 226, was ordered on November 1, 1919. Built by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation at their shipyard in Glouchester City, New Jersey, alongside three other Arrow-class ships, No. 226 was named Dixie Arrow.
The tanker's keel was laid on January 24, 1921. She was launched from South Yard 3 on September 29, sponsored and christened by Isabelle Brown of Dallas, Texas. Dixie Arrow was completed and delivered on November 29, following her sea trials that had been conducted on November 23. Dixie Arrow was given the designation ID-4789 by the United States Navy (USN). She was also assigned the US official number 221735, the maritime call sign KDVT and the radio signal letters MDHO. Dixie Arrow's entire construction process was overseen by George Bucham and A. A. James.
While Dixie Arrow was built for the Standard Transportation Company, in actually she was owned by Socony. Standard Transportation Co. was a subsidiary of Socony, which was not unusual for large companies at the time. Socony had emerged as one of two major companies to rise from the breakup of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, the other being Standard Oil of New Jersey. Socony had originally existed as a subsidiary of Standard Oil after the former was established in 1882. Lloyd's of London's register linked the ship to Standard Transportation Company for eleven years, from 1921 until 1931. Dixie Arrow was then registered under Standard Vacuum Transport Co. for three years, following the merger of Socony and Vacuum Oil Co. in 1931. The company's name changed just four years later in 1935, becoming Socony-Vacuum Oil Company. Despite the constant changes in owners and operators, everything else remained the same: for the entirety of the tanker's service, Dixie Arrow was a ship flying the American flag as her ensign and registered at the Port of New York.
Eleven other Arrow-class tankers were constructed for Socony between 1916 and 1921, all of nearly identical dimensions. Three of the class' ships—Yankee Arrow, Empire Arrow, and Levant Arrow—were constructed by New York Shipbuilding Corp. alongside Dixie Arrow. Four other ships of the class would end up meeting similar fates at the hands of German submarines—called U-boats—during the war: Broad Arrow would be sunk by U-124 off Guyana; China Arrow would be sunk by U-103 near Norfolk, Virginia; India Arrow would be sunk by the same U-boat off New York City; and Sylvan Arrow would be sunk by U-155 southwest of Grenada. Two of them—Yankee Arrow and Java Arrow—were torpedoed but repaired, and served in various capacities for the remainder of the war.

### Design

Dixie Arrow was 468.3 feet (142.7 m) long, 62.7 feet (19.1 m) wide, and 26.0 feet (7.9 m) from the waterline to the bottom of the keel. In the aft of the bottom deck, the tanker was outfitted with a one four-cylinder quadruple expansion steam engine, along with three single-ended Scotch marine boilers with nine corrugated furnaces total (three per boiler), giving her a maximum speed of 11 knots with a single three-bladed propeller. Dixie Arrow had a gross register tonnage of 8,046 tons, a net register tonnage of 4,960 tons, an underdeck tonnage of 7,834 tons, and a deadweight tonnage of 13,400 tons. The tanker also had a total tons burthen, or internal cargo volume, of 99,742 m$^3$.
Dixie Arrow boasted three masts and a funnel atop the aft superstructure, which held a shelter that was "designed to carry petroleum in bulk with aft positioned machinery." The tanker had ten double cargo holds for bulk oil able to carry up to four million gallons of commercial oil, and room for a maximum of 400,000 gallons of fuel that would allow her to steam a maximum length of 46 days. A tween deck was located between the cargo and main decks, designed to carry general cargo, and the space was used significantly during the ship's service in the Far East. Located on the main deck were five deck cranes, used to transport cargo in and out of the holds. For this purpose, there were eight removable hatches on the main deck. The ship also had a system of electric lights controlled from a panel in the bridge, with the dynamo having a capacity of 182 amperes at 110 volts.
Excluding decks without a roof, the forward superstructure was three decks high, and the aft superstructure was only one deck high. A removable accommodation ladder ran down the starboard side of the ship, amidships, to the waterline. Dixie Arrow was given a rating of 100A1 by a 1921 Lloyd’s Register survey, meaning she was suitable for seagoing service and fit to carry dry and perishable goods. In the survey's report, it was noted that the tanker had "good and efficient anchoring and mooring equipment." In addition, the tanker's radio system had a maximum telegraphical range of 800 nautical miles while on a frequency of 375 kilocycles.

## Service

The first year of Dixie Arrow's service had among her longest trips, going from New York City, through the Panama Canal, and to the Far East. This route was given to all of the Arrow-class ships, though it would only be followed by a handful of them until the outbreak of World War II. Only conducting three of these voyages, Dixie Arrow departed for her first trip in late 1921. The ship departed from New York City, first docking in the Panamanian city of Colón, then San Francisco, and finally sailing across the Pacific Ocean to the British territory of Hong Kong. After unloading her cargo in the British port, Dixie Arrow would sail to the Philippines to load various vegetable oils in Manila, such as coconut, nut, and what was referred to as "China wood" oil. These unusual cargos would fill her empty oil tanks before she took the voyage in reverse, heading back to New York. Traditionally, ships sailed empty on their return trips with ballast in the hold, but Socony-Vacuum Oil hoped to profit off of the long length of the voyages. Each of these voyages across the Pacific took around six months to complete, and served as a testament to the Arrow-class' seaworthiness and range.
After three voyages and serving roughly two years in the Far East, Dixie Arrow was rerouted to the domestic oil trade in 1923. The tanker's route was changed in order to carry oil back and forth across North America, sailing between the three largest oil producing and consuming states in the union: New York, Texas, and California. This change came after oil fields opened up in the area surrounding Los Angeles earlier that same year. The move was made by Socony to reroute several of the Arrow-class ships "since their design of being both a general cargo carrier and bulk oil carrier proved to be versatile and efficient." Dixie Arrow would conduct long hauls through the Panama Canal to the cities of San Francisco and San Diego, sailing from port cities in the northeast such as New York City, Boston, and Providence. While primarily carrying her traditional cargo of crude oil, the ship also carried general freight as she was flexible in both her route and cargo type. It is possible that she also carried bunker fuel to the Panama Canal Zone for transiting vessels. Dixie Arrow would also make intermediate stops in various Texan ports while on these voyages. Compared to her service in the Far East, Dixie Arrow solely sailed in ballast when on her voyages towards California. This practice would be continued for the rest of the tanker's service.
In 1931, the tanker's operations were handed over to a new subsidiary of Socony: Standard Vacuum Transport Company. The amount of oil tankers sailing to and from California and through the Panama Canal had lessened since 1927, with the Californian oil fields becoming insignificant by the first years of the 1930s. Soon after Socony removing California from the ship's route, Dixie Arrow was rerouted this time to directly service Texan ports, all of which were operated by one of Socony's affiliates, Magnolia Petroleum Company. On her voyages up and down the east coast, Dixie Arrow carried case oil, cargo consisting of a pair of five-gallon oil drums packed together in a small wooden box. The types of oil in these cases typically included gasoline, kerosene, benzene, and lubricating oil, among others. Dixie Arrow was returned her parent company, Socony, in 1936.

### Second World War

After both the outbreak of the Second World War on September 1, 1939, and the United States' entry into the conflict after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Dixie Arrow remained on her regular route. The ship adopted measure 14 naval camouflage and was painted fully grey, as the camouflage was noted for its protection of smaller vessels against submarine attacks. Dixie Arrow was never outfitted with weapons, nor did she ever travel in a convoy. In terms of her service to the allies, it is possible that the ship's regular petroleum cargo was offloaded and then transferred to other tankers bound for Europe, as it was common for American tankers to transport oil to ports such as New York, where it would be loaded onto British-flagged vessels and transported across the Atlantic. The Petroleum Administration for War was created in 1942 to oversee the activities of petroleum during wartime. With U-boats now sinking American vessels off their own coast, oil refineries began to lose their supply of petroleum, threatening the production of war matériel. The Gulf Coast had a large supply of crude oil, but there were not enough tankers to transport it. As such, Dixie Arrow and many other vessels were assigned the task to carry oil from Texas to New York in order to supply the war effort.

## Final voyage
### Sailing

On March 19, 1942, Dixie Arrow left Texas City, Texas, bound for the city of Paulsboro, New Jersey. The ship was carrying 86,136 barrels (13,694.5 m$^3$) of crude oil to be used for the Allied war effort, and had a crew numbering 33 men. Despite the fact that the tanker sailed with other ships visible off her bow and stern, Dixie Arrow was not officially sailing in a convoy. The Coastal Convoy System used by the USN was established in the summer of 1942, nearly three months after Dixie Arrow would be sunk.
Dixie Arrow's master, Captain Anders Johanson, ordered the tanker to follow a forty fathom curve in hopes of staying safe while sailing past Cape Hatteras. The decision to take an unusual course away from the barrier islands that made up the North Carolinan Outer Banks was reportedly due to Captain Johanson's concerns about the shallow depth of the water there. This decision, however, also brought Dixie Arrow into the hunting grounds of U-boats. As she sailed up the East Coast of the United States, Dixie Arrow constantly received SOS, SSS, and SSSS messages from ships that had been torpedoed by U-boats. As a precautionary measure, Captain Johanson ordered all of the tanker's lights to be turned off at night.
While it was only March, the United States Merchant Marine had already suffered heavy losses in 1942. Nearly 80 allied ships would be sunk by German U-boats off of the coastline of North Carolina by the end of the campaign, officially named Operation Paukenschlag (English: Operation Drumbeat). Operation Drumbeat was the second major U-boat phase in the Atlantic, which itself was part of the much larger Battle of the Atlantic. Operation Drumbeat would become nicknamed the "Second Happy Time" by Germans sailors due to the high amount of shipping losses suffered by the Allied powers.
While steaming past the Outer Banks, Dixie Arrow's crew could see columns of smoke coming from oil fires located south of Morehead City, the result of other ships that had fallen victim to U-boats. Ships traditionally sailed along warm water currents for speed, namely the Gulf Stream. Both the Gulf Stream and the Labrador Current meet off the coast of North Carolina. All shipping in the area was either coming from the north or the south, making the region a prime hunting ground for U-boats. In addition, the continental shelf is narrowest along the coastline, making it convenient for U-boats to hide themselves in deep water while waiting for ships. As a result of this, the area was nicknamed "Torpedo Junction" by sailors.

### Sinking

Roughly 10 minutes before 09:00 AM EWT (Eastern War Time), in the morning hours of March 26, 1942, Dixie Arrow made her way past both Cape Fear and Cape Lookout, and into Cape Hatteras' infamous Diamond Shoals. The tanker was reported to be zig-zagging with 45° tacks at 10.5 knots, altering her course every 6–9 minutes. Around 9:00 AM, a United States Coast Guard (USCG) airplane reported that it was circling Dixie Arrow near the Diamond Shoals outer buoy, at 34° 59' N, 75° 33' W. The tanker was sailing through calm, clear, and smooth seas with a gentle breeze. Twelve miles (19 km) southwest of Cape Hatteras, at 08:58 AM, while on its fifth patrol, the type VII-C submarine U-71 spotted the ship through its periscope. The U-boat had had quite the successful patrol thus far, having sunk the Norwegian tanker SS Ranja and the American cargo ship SS Oakmar just days earlier. U-71 maneuvered itself in-between the shoreline and Dixie Arrow, reportedly as to avoid civilian casualties. Kapitanleutnant Walter Flachsenberg gave the order to fire three torpedoes, all of which hit Dixie Arrow amidships on the starboard side. Most of the ship's crew was eating breakfast, and none of those who were on watch saw the torpedoes coming.
The first torpedo blew up the forward deckhouse and lit its ruins on fire, killing the radio operator, all the ship's officers, and a number of crewmen. The other two torpedoes hit the ship roughly sixty seconds later, sending the ship ablaze and causing her to buckle before breaking in two. In addition, the second blast killed Captain Johanson, who had stepped out of his cabin to investigate the initial explosion; wounded eight men in the dining hall; and knocked out the lights in the engine room, causing the entire ship to go dark. The engines were stopped by first assistant engineer William Rolfe, and the ship began to drift aimlessly in the water. Around this time, the USCG airplane spotted the ship aflame, and its pilot proceeded to take multiple photographs of the sinking ship. The explosions were also visible from Hatteras Island and the communities there. Seaman Richard Rushton described the moments after the torpedo's strike in a 2001 interview in his San Francisco home:
   When the torpedo struck, there was sort of a rolling motion. It's not a jarring [motion] because the ship is so big. It sort of rolled the ship, and we came out of breakfast, and we could see the fire and smoke. One of the older sailors went to a lifeboat, and he panicked. He took the line off the cleats and dropped the boat, but it was on the starboard side where the fire was. He had [the line] around his arm, and it launched him out into the fire. The boat probably weighed 2,000 pounds or so. Steel, too. Full of supplies. He was one of the older sailors, and he knew better, but he panicked.
The able seaman in the wheelhouse, Oscar Chappell, turned the ship to starboard, bringing the ship into the wind to keep the men on the bow from being burnt to death and allow them to jump into the water to relative safety. However, in doing so, he turned the flames on himself and was killed. He was posthumously awarded both the Distinguished Merchant Marine Medal and the Navy Distinguished Service Medal for his actions. The liberty ship SS Oscar Chappell was also named after the sailor. One of the sailors saved by Chappell was named Paul Meyers, who described him in a report he later made:
   Fire was shooting up all about [Chappell]. He saw several men trapped by the flames that the wind was blowing around them. He turned the ship's head hard right, which took the flames off the bow but threw them directly upon himself. He lasted only a few minutes after that. He died at the helm.
Oil poured out of the ship in gallons, and the inferno completely engulfed the ship along with her cargo. The crew of U-71 became unable to see their prey through the thick smoke. Two of the four lifeboats were destroyed in the flames, and a third swung uncontrollably on its davits and ended up launching one crewman into the flames and to his death. The ship's fourth and only remaining lifeboat managed to launch, with Rushton and seven others aboard. As it pulled away from Dixie Arrow, two crewmen—Fred Spiese and Alex Waszczseyn—jumped from the deck of the ship, and despite the former not knowing how to swim, only the latter would be killed by the flames. One life raft was covered in burning oil after oil tanks ruptured, killing everyone on it. As the radio operator was killed in the initial explosion, no distress call was ever sent out. Rushton described the escape in the lifeboat:
   The entire starboard side was ablaze, and the oil was pouring out. I got into the [aft port #4] lifeboat and put the plug in the bottom and was getting it ready for launching. It's a tense time, I suppose, but we had practiced this—the lifeboat drill—a time or two. The ship was still underway, and the fire was pouring out and coming around the back. The fire seemed to be close. We had guys pulling on the big oars, and I remember one guy snapped his, he was pulling so hard. These were probably two-inch diameter oars. We tried to get this sailor off the raft because the rafts were no good. They were made for survival, I guess, but they drifted right into the fire. And they're heavy, and you can't paddle them. So we tried to get this guy to jump into the water. He wouldn't get off the raft. He went right into the fire.

### Rescue operations

The USN destroyer USS Tarbell (DD-142) spotted the flames of Dixie Arrow, and the ship's crew came to investigate. Being guided by a USN seaplane sent from Naval Operating Base Norfolk, the destroyer arrived around 9:30 AM, roughly half an hour after Dixie Arrow had first been torpedoed. After the seaplane dropped two bombs on the U-boat, the destroyer dropped a few depth charges—which killed several of Dixie Arrow's crewmen floating in the water—and did nothing to harm the submarine. The crew of the submarine did note that it shook "from end to end, bracketed by Tarbell's depth charges." A crewman of Dixie Arrow reported that he "felt like somebody had kicked him in the stomach" after the first depth charges exploded, and several survivors were knocked unconscious. Upon noticing the people in the water, Tarbell dropped stopped the deployment of depth charges and began to lower lifeboats for Dixie Arrow's survivors. Rescuing eight men in the lifeboat and 11 others in the water, Tarbell ended up rescuing a total of 22 survivors. The destroyer took them to Morehead, North Carolina, but the survivors were later transferred to Norfolk, Virginia, for better conditions.

## Aftermath

U-71 managed to escape, moving to full power after Tarbell departed and returning to La Pallice, France, on April 20. The type VII-C submarine went on to have a successful career, sinking five vessels for a combined 38,895 tons over the course of ten patrols, lasting a total of 366 days. U-71 was also one of the few U-boats to survive until the end of the war, being decommissioned and later scuttled on May 2, 1945 in Wilhelmshaven, Germany: six days before the German surrender.
Dixie Arrow was formally struck from the Lloyd's of London's register of shipping on May 12, 1942, nearly two months after the ship had been sunk.

### Wreck

Dixie Arrow continued to float aflame before eventually drifting inshore near the Cape Hatteras minefields and sinking in the nighttime hours of March 26. As she settled, the wreck of the ship accidentally detonated a mine that had been laid by the USN in an attempt to deter U-boats. The USCG buoy tender Orchid was sent to the wreck, where she placed a red nun buoy to warn other vessels about the shipwreck. The wrecksite of Dixie Arrow were used as target practice by planes from the Cherry Point North Carolina Marine Air Station for the next year, but her masts collapsed into the sea in 1943. The remainder of the shipwreck was wire-dragged and finally demolished in 1944 to ensure that the shipwreck would not be a hazard for navigation. Dixie Arrow's bell was recovered in 1944 by USN divers, where it was presented to designer Nicholas Pluymert. Pluymert later dedicated the bell to Oscar Chappell.
Currently, Dixie Arrow lays under 90 feet (27 m) of water, 15 miles south of Hatteras Inlet, at 34°54'0.58"N, 75°45'1.73"W. She sits upright, half-buried in the seabed. Although the wreck is in two parts, they are close together and still aligned, in stark contrast to the wrecks of other ships that split in two while sinking, such as RMS Titanic. The tanker's bow and stern are both in good condition, with much of the machinery in the bow still in its original positions. The starboard side is also much more intact than the port side in the bow. The ship's boilers are the most prominent features of the stern section. The triple-expansion steam engine lies in the middle of the wreck, amidst the remains of all sorts of pipes, valves, and other fittings. Amidships, Dixie Arrow is an unrecognizable mess of parts and metal.
Despite some concerns about environmental sustainability due to the Dixie Arrow's cargo, the ship's cargo holds and tanks are empty, and there is "no presence of oil on or within the shipwreck." On September 25, 2013, the shipwreck and surrounding area was labeled as a National Historic Place. The shipwreck was also was also labeled as part of NOAA's Monitor National Marine Sanctuary. In recent years, the wreck has become a popular site for both recreational wreck divers and marine biologists. In May of 2019, it was reported that a fishing net had gotten stuck on Dixie Arrow's wreck. The net was quickly removed by locals with no damage to the ship or wildlife.