LIHU‘E — Ill luck came to ships named Andrea F. Luckenbach. The Luckenbach Steamship Company of New York was the longest-lived and most successful of U.S. shipping companies beginning with a single tugboat in 1850 pioneering tug-and-barge coal transport from
LIHU‘E — Ill luck came to ships named Andrea F. Luckenbach. The
Luckenbach Steamship Company of New York was the longest-lived and
most successful of U.S. shipping companies beginning with a single
tugboat in 1850 pioneering tug-and-barge coal transport from West
Virginia to New York.
Editor’s note: On Dec. 3, the Kaua‘i Museum celebrates its 50th anniversary. Museum leaders have chosen 50 stories from exhibits, collections and the archives of the museum to share with the public. One story will run daily through Dec. 3.
LIHU‘E — Ill luck came to ships named Andrea F. Luckenbach. The Luckenbach Steamship Company of New York was the longest-lived and most successful of U.S. shipping companies beginning with a single tugboat in 1850 pioneering tug-and-barge coal transport from West Virginia to New York.
The first ship of that name was a 1919 freighter. The Luckenbach left New York on Feb. 28, 1943, in a 60-ship convoy with a cargo of 11,600 tons of Army equipment and explosives. That evening, the leader of their column, Tucurinca, was torpedoed by German U-boat U221. A few minutes later lookouts from the Luchenbach spotted a periscope seconds before two FAT torpedoes hit the ship on its port side followed by another hit.
The master gave the “abandon ship” order and the ship sank within 10 minutes. Most of the crew made it to the lifeboats with the exception of the 10-man naval gun crew that was killed in the first torpedo hit and an officer who could not swim that gave his life vest to a crew member.
A second ship started its life as the USS Ottawa, a Tolland-class attack cargo ship named after counties in the states of Kansas, Michigan, Ohio, and Oklahoma.
Built in 1945, she was stationed with the Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor and transported cargo throughout the South Pacific during the war. As part of her post-war duties, she was one of the vantage points for Test Baker, nuclear testing, at Bikini Atoll.
In 1947 she was decommissioned and acquired by the Luckenbach line and renamed Andrea F. Luckenbach.
On March 11, 1951, she struck a submerged object three miles off Kohala Point, Kaua‘i. She was abandoned and then refloated to be scrapped some months later.
