SS Dumaru
{{Short description|American wooden steam ship (1918)}}
| {{Infobox ship begin}}
{{Infobox ship image | Ship image=File:Dumaru Launch.jpg | Ship caption=SS Dumaru in the Willamette River, Portland, Oregon, on April 17, 1918. }} {{Infobox ship career | Hide header=True | Ship country=United States | Ship flag={{shipboxflag|US|naval}} | Ship name= SS Dumaru | Ship namesake= | Ship owner=United States Shipping Board | Ship operator= | Ship registry= | Ship route= | Ship ordered= | Ship awarded= | Ship builder=Grant Smith-Porter Ship Co. | Ship original cost= | Ship yard number= | Ship way number= | Ship laid down=November 17, 1917 | Ship launched= April 17, 1918 | Ship sponsor= | Ship christened= | Ship completed= | Ship acquired= | Ship commissioned= | Ship recommissioned= | Ship decommissioned= | Ship maiden voyage= | Ship in service= | Ship out of service= | Ship renamed= | Ship reclassified= | Ship refit= | Ship struck= | Ship reinstated= | Ship homeport= | Ship identification= | Ship motto= | Ship nickname= | Ship honours= | Ship honors= | Ship captured= | Ship fate= Exploded and sank October 16, 1918 | Ship notes= | Ship badge= }} {{Infobox ship characteristics | Hide header= | Header caption= | Ship class= | Ship type= Hough | Ship tonnage= | Ship displacement= | Ship length=268 Feet | Ship beam= | Ship height= | Ship draught= | Ship draft= | Ship depth= | Ship hold depth= | Ship decks= | Ship deck clearance= | Ship ramps= | Ship ice class= | Ship power= | Ship propulsion= | Ship sail plan= | Ship speed= | Ship range= | Ship boats= | Ship capacity= | Ship troops= | Ship complement= | Ship crew= | Ship time to activate= | Ship sensors= | Ship EW= | Ship armament= | Ship notes= }} |
SS Dumaru was a Design 1003, Hough-type wooden steam ship launched on April 17, 1918, in Portland, Oregon, as part of the United States Shipping Board Merchant Fleet Corporation. On October 16, 1918, during her maiden voyage, Dumaru was struck by lightning off the coast of Guam, igniting her munitions cargo and destroying the ship.{{cite journal |last1=Bean |first1=Theron W. |title=Invention versus Death - to a Finish |journal=Popular Science |date=June 1919 |volume=94 |issue=6 |pages=22–23 |publisher=Bonnier Corporation |location=Google Books |issn=0161-7370}}{{cite news|url=https://pamplinmedia.com/lor/48-news/113002-a-bolt-of-death-from-the-sky|title=A bolt of death from the sky|first=Cliff|last=Newell|work=Pamplin Media Group|accessdate=30 June 2019|archive-date=2 August 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210802061139/https://pamplinmedia.com/lor/48-news/113002-a-bolt-of-death-from-the-sky|url-status=dead}}
All hands were able to evacuate into two lifeboats and one raft prior to Dumaru´s destruction, with the raft and its five passengers, including Captain Ole Berrensen, being rescued nine days later near the site of the sinking.
The two lifeboats, one undermanned with only nine of its 20 seats filled and the other severely overcrowded with 32 crewmen aboard, drifted for approximately three weeks across the Pacific Ocean to the Philippine Islands. The latter boat quickly exhausted its fresh water supply, forcing the crew to construct a crude water desalination device and eventually resort to cannibalism, consuming the bodies of other crewmen who had died of exposure.
References
Bibliography
- {{cite book
| last = Thomas
| first = Lowell
| title = The Wreck of the Dumaru
| publisher = Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc.
| date = 1930
| location = Garden City, New York }}
- {{Cite news
| last = Holbrook
| first = Stewart B.
| title = When the Jinx Cruised With the Dumaru
| newspaper = Sunday Oregonian
| pages = Magazine Section
| date = June 11, 1933
}}
{{Maiden voyage sinkings}}
{{October 1918 shipwrecks}}
{{coord missing|Pacific Ocean}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dumaru SS}}
Category:Incidents of cannibalism
Category:Steamships of the United States
Category:Ships built in Portland, Oregon
Category:Shipwrecks in the Pacific Ocean
Category:Maritime incidents in 1918
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