SS Montebello

SS Montebello was an oil tanker sunk by the Japanese submarine, I-21, off the coast of California on December 23, 1941. ^[1][2]

Ship description

The SS Montebello was a shelter-deck oil tanker built by the Southwestern Shipbuilding Company in San Pedro, California for the Union Oil Company. She was launched in 1921. Steel hulled, she had a length of 440 feet (130 m), beam of 58.2 feet (17.7 m), and draft of 32.8 feet.^[3] The ship had ten divided liquid storage tanks which ran the width of the ship and was a single-hull design. She had an expected life of 25 years and was 20 years old when torpedoed.^[3] When she went down, the Montebello held 73,571 barrels (11,696.9 m³) of crude oil along with 104,034 US gallons (393,810 L) of fuel oil for her engines.^[2]

Sinking

The Montebello, a Union Oil Co. tanker, was torpedoed after leaving for Vancouver, British Columbia, from the small Central Coast seaport of Port San Luis.

The officers and crew were aware there had been several attacks on American shipping off the West Coast. The risk was so high that Montebello's skipper had refused to take the ship to sea and he quit. After replacing the captain with the chief mate, Olaf Eckstrom,^[2] they set off at midnight. By 5:45 a.m., off the coast of the small town of Cayucos, CA, just north of Morro Bay, two torpedoes hit the ship, said Dick Quincy, 91, who was a seaman on board, but one was a dud.^[2] The torpedo responsible for the sinking struck forward in the pump room and dry storage cargo hold^[4] .

The crew was unarmed, and as the men jumped into lifeboats, the submarine surfaced and fired at them with its deck gun. By 6:30 a.m., the ship had stood on her bow and slid under, according to a report published the next day. No one was killed. "You held your breath," Quincy said. "It was a wild time."^[5][6][7]

Exploration of the wreck

In an expedition conducted on 7 November 1996, the submersible Delta descended with two men on board to the wreck at a depth of 880 feet (270 m) and found the Montebello sitting upright on the bottom. Based on their observations it was concluded that a single torpedo hit the Montebello just forward of the pump room. While the bow was broken from the impact with the sea floor, the overall condition of the wreck was thought to be quite good, giving rise to the concern that she may still hold her liquid cargo.^[3][7]

In August, 2010 the wreck was examined by a robot submarine from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute^[2] to determine whether the oil cargo was still on board and whether it posed a possible environmental threat. The expedition created three-dimension images of the ship using sonar, which are being analyzed onshore. Jack Hunter, an archaeologist for Caltrans who examined the wreck in 1996 and compared the images from the 2010 expedition expressed concern that the wreck has deteriorated over the past 14 years and could represent a risk if the cargo leaks out.^[2]

Further explorations of the wreck were scheduled for 2011.^[2][7] The expedition is expected to cost $2.3 million, to be paid for out of a fund which oil companies pay into for such situations.^[8] A report on a recommended course of action is expected to be released late 2011.^[8] After two weeks of extensive testing in October 2011, researchers determined that no crude oil remained in the tanker and such oil most likely was released from the vessel shortly after sinking and dissipated throughout the region.^[9]

References

1. ^ "Experts probe WWII wreck just off California's coast". Oakland Tribune. February 20, 2004. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20040220/ai_n14569482. Retrieved September 9, 2007. ^{[dead link]}
2. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} Nolte, Carl (August 27, 2010). "Oil aboard sunken WWII tanker may pose threat". San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/27/MN5L1F24VA.DTL. Retrieved 2011 October 18. 
3. ^ ^{a b c} Ruppe, Carol (2002). International Handbook of Underwater Archaeology. Kluwer Academic Publishers. p. 728. ISBN 0-306-46345-8. http://books.google.com/books?id=A4MHdpqr8g4C&pg=PA728&dq=tanker+ss+montebello&hl=en&ei=YcB7TIncN4P-8AaD_cyFBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=tanker%20ss%20montebello&f=false. Retrieved 2011 October 18. 
4. ^ "Assessing Potential Pollution Effects to the Marine Environment and California Coast" (pdf). http://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=28104&inline=true. Retrieved 2011 October 18. 
5. ^ Associated Press "WWII tanker off Calif. coast may still pose threat" August 29, 2010
6. ^ New Times, San Luis Obispo, December 2009
7. ^ ^{a b c} Schwartz, Noaki (Oct. 17, 2011), "Is sunken WWII tanker a threat to coast?", Orange County Register News (Santa Ana, CA): 1, 6, http://www.ocregister.com/articles/oil-142514-ocprint-montebello-ship.html, retrieved 2011 October 18 
8. ^ ^{a b} "U.S. seeks to pull oil from tanker torpedoed by Japan". The Japan Times Online. The Japan Times. http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20111019f1.html. Retrieved 19 October 2011. 
9. ^ Barboza, Tony (2011 October 20). "Sunken WWII boat mystery: Where did 3 million gallons of oil go?". http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/10/sunken-wwii-boat-mystery-where-did-3-million-gallons-of-oil-go.html. Retrieved 2011 October 21.