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. She was part of the wider Arrow-class of oil tankers built to modernize the company's tanker fleet. For two decades, the tanker carried petroleum and other oil products to and from the Far East and North America, as well as 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.
Following the outbreak of World War I, Standard Oil of New York (Socony) began development of a new class of oil tanker. The company hoped to modernize their fleet of oil tankers, and to replace the aging barks they had received at the turn of the 20th century. 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 also served as 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 Camden, 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, the daughter of E. R. Brown, owner of the Magnolia Petroleum Company. Dixie Arrow's sea trials were conducted on November 23 in the Delaware Bay, and the tanker was both completed and delivered on November 29. The tanker was assigned the United States Navy (USN) designation ID-4789, 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.
All twelve of the Arrow class ships were of nearly equal dimensions, with only minimal differences between them. Building several ships using the same plans was extremely efficient, saving on valuable things such as cost, materials, and construction time. In addition, no time would be spent training crews on new ships, as all of them operated and had the same layout.
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 and three single-ended Scotch marine boilers with nine corrugated furnaces total (three per boiler). As a result, Dixie Arrow had a maximum speed of 11 knots with a single three-bladed propeller. The tanker 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. She also had a total tons burthen, or internal cargo volume, of 99,742 m.
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.
The tanker's forward superstructure was three decks high, and the aft superstructure was one deck high. A removable accommodation ladder ran down the starboard side of the ship, amidships, all the way to the waterline. Dixie Arrow was given a rating of 100A1 by a 1921 Lloyd’s Register survey, meaning the tanker was suitable for seagoing service and fit to carry dry and perishable goods. In the survey's report, it was noted that the ship had "good and efficient anchoring and mooring equipment." In addition, Dixie Arrow's radio system had a maximum telegraphical range of 800 nautical miles while on a frequency of 375 kilocycles.
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 it had been established in 1882. Lloyd's of London's registers linked the ownership of Dixie Arrow to Standard Transportation Company for ten years, from 1921 until 1931. The tanker 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. For the entire duration of her service, Dixie Arrow flew the American flag as her ensign and was registered at the Port of New York. The tanker also flew the Socony house flag, which consisted of a white swallowtail with blue stripes along the top and bottom, and a red Pegasus in the center.
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 refueling in San Francisco, and finally steaming 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. Ships traditionally sailed empty on their return trips with only ballast in the hold, though Socony opposed this approach in order to secure higher profits on each transpacific voyage. Each of these voyages 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, steaming 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, and Socony rerouted several other 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 voyages through the Panama Canal to the cities of San Francisco, San Diego, and Los Angeles, steaming 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. She also carried bunker fuel to New York City, San Francisco, and the Panama Canal Zone for use by 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 another subsidiary: Standard Vacuum Transport Company. The amount of oil tankers steaming 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 afterwards, Socony removed California from the ship's route. Dixie Arrow was rerouted to directly service Texan ports, all of which were operated by one of Socony's affiliates, either the Magnolia Petroleum Company or the Humble Oil and Refinery Company. The ports directly serviced the East Texas Oil Field, the largest petroleum reservoir in the state. 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 packed into these drums consisted of primarily petroleum and gasoline. However, some drums also carried kerosene, benzene, and lubricating oil, among others. Dixie Arrow was returned Socony in 1936.
Following 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. Although the ship was not outfitted with weapons or placed in a convoy, the she did adopt measure 14 naval camouflage and was painted fully grey, as the camouflage was used to protect smaller vessels from submarine attacks. 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. It was common practice 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 also 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, however 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. By the end of the conflict, Socony would rank 86th among United States corporations in the value of military production contracts.
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) 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 steaming 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 (240 ft; 73 m) curve in hopes of staying safe while steaming 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 messages of SOS and SSSS 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 during the night.
Around 80 Allied ships would be sunk by German U-boats off of the coastline of North Carolina by the end of their campaign, officially named Operation Paukenschlag (English: Operation Drumbeat). The operation 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 of North Carolina, 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.
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, altering her course every 6–9 minutes, and was steaming at a speed of 10.5 knots. Shortly before 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 steaming through calm, clear, and smooth seas with a gentle breeze.
Twelve miles (19 km) southwest of Cape Hatteras, the type VII-C submarine U-71 was on its fifth patrol, now under the command of Kapitänleutnant Walter Flachsenberg. The U-boat had had a successful patrol thus far, having sunk the Norwegian tanker SS Ranja and the American cargo ship SS Oakmar just days earlier. The submarine had been preparing "to dive and sleep for the day when [the] lookout spotted some masts on the southern horizon. The sun was up but Flachsenberg waited to see if the vessel was of interest. It was. A tanker! Almost disbelieving his eyes, Flachsenberg saw it was entirely alone." U-71 vanished under the water and began to maneuver itself in-between the shoreline and Dixie Arrow, reportedly to avoid civilian casualties. At 8:58 AM, Kapitanleutnant Flachsenberg gave the order to fire three torpedoes, all of which hit Dixie Arrow amidships on the starboard side.
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 amidships. 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. The engines were stopped by the first assistant engineer, 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. Seaman Richard Rushton described the first moments after the strikes in a 2001 interview:
The able seaman in the wheelhouse, Oscar Chappell, quickly turned the ship to starboard. Chappell brought the ship into the wind to keep the men on the bow from being burnt to death and allowing them time to jump into the water to relative safety. However, in doing this, he turned the flames on himself and was killed. A surviving crewman recalled that, at one point, "fire was shooting up all about [Chappell]". The able seaman 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 named after him, as well as the Able Seaman Oscar Chappell Award For Outstanding Maritime Stewardship.
Dixie Arrow became completely engulfed by fire, with U-71's crew becoming unable to see the ship. Two of the tanker's 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. Her fourth and only remaining lifeboat managed to launch due to the efforts of six crewmen, with Rushton and seven others aboard it.
The six crewmen that helped launch the lifeboat jumped into the flaming water and managed to find a life raft, though it was promptly covered in flaming oil and burnt everyone on it to death. Other men who had jumped into the water and somehow survived the scathing flames clung to floating debris, and the crew in the lifeboat did little to help them. As Dixie Arrow's sole radio operator was killed in the initial explosion, no distress call had ever been sent out to alert nearby ships. Tankers steaming the east coast seldom stopped to assist the survivors of torpedoed vessels, for fear that they too would find themselves on the receiving end of a U-boat's torpedo.
The USN destroyer USS Tarbell spotted the flames of Dixie Arrow, and the ship's crew came to investigate. 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 several depth charges—which killed several of the tanker's crewmen in the water—and did nothing to harm the submarine, though it reportedly 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 either knocked unconscious or killed by the blasts. Upon noticing the people in the water, the destroyer's crew stopped the deployment of depth charges and began to lower lifeboats for Dixie Arrow's survivors. Rescuing eight men in the lifeboat and 14 others in the water, Tarbell ended up rescuing a total of 22 survivors. The destroyer took them to Morehead City, North Carolina, but the survivors were later transferred to Norfolk, Virginia, for better conditions.
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.
By nighttime, Dixie Arrow had drifted inshore to the Cape Hatteras minefields, where she would finally sink. There, the tanker's frame gave in and broke in two. Her bow disappeared underwater, the superstructure catching on the stern and dragging it down as well. The fires that had once engulfed the ship were subsequently extinguished by the seawater. As she settled, 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 wrecksite, where she placed a red nun buoy to warn other vessels navigating the area of the ship. The shipwreck of Dixie Arrow was used as target practice by planes from the Cherry Point North Carolina Marine Air Station for the next year, and her masts collapsed into the sea in 1943. The rest of the shipwreck was wire-dragged and finally demolished in 1944 to ensure that she would not be a hazard for navigation. Dixie Arrow's bell was recovered in 1944 by the USN during a dive to the wreck. The bell was later presented to designer Nicholas Pluymert, who dedicated it to Oscar Chappell.
Dixie Arrow currently lays on a flat sand plain under 90 feet (27 m) of water, 15 miles (24 km) south of Hatteras Inlet, at 34°54'0.58"N, 75°45'1.73"W. Both parts sit upright, close together and aligned, and are partially buried in the seabed. The tanker's bow and stern are both in good condition, with much of the machinery in those parts still in its original positions. In the bow, the starboard side is also much more intact than the port side. The boilers and engine are the most prominent features of the stern section. Despite this, Dixie Arrow is an unrecognizable mess of parts and metal amidships.
Despite some concerns about environmental sustainability due to the Dixie Arrow's cargo, the ship's oil tanks are empty, and there is "no presence of oil on or within the shipwreck." On September 25, 2013, the shipwreck and 61.7 acres surrounding it was labeled as a National Historic Place by the United States government. The shipwreck was also was also labeled as part of NOAA's Monitor National Marine Sanctuary, placing it under maritime protection. In recent years, the wreck has become a popular site for both recreational wreck divers and marine biologists. Wildlife, including sharks, sponges, and rays, inhabit the wreck, which has become a center for the nautical ecosystem. In May of 2019, it was reported that a fishing net had gotten stuck on Dixie Arrow's wreck. The net was soon removed by locals with no damage to the shipwreck or wildlife.