Cadet Midshipman Edwin J. 0 'Hara brings the
Hopkins's fo ur-incher into action singlehanded. Painting by Lt. WN. Wilson, USMS, courtesy US Merchant Marine Academy.
How an Ugly Duckling Fought Back and Sank Her Assailant by Peter Stanford Liberty ships , the mass-produced " ugly duckling" freighters of World War II , were armed to ward off surface attack by submarines , and provide some defense against aircraft. The Liberty Stephen Hopkins , one of the first 20 of the 2 ,750 ultimately built in the US, was launched from Kaiser's yard in Richmond , California in the spring of 1942. She was armed with a 4in gun salvaged from World War I (later Libertys carried a Sin gun and usually a 3in heavy anti-aircraft gun as well) . She also carried 2-37mm anti-aircraft guns and 6 machine guns. Her fourincher threw a 33-pound projectile. So armed , she stumbled on the German auxiliary cruiser Stier and her supply ship Tannenfels , coming out of a rainstorm in the South Atlantic on the morning of September 27, 1942. The Stier carried six 5.9in guns, each firing a shell weighing almost four times the Hopkins 's shell , and directed by sophisticated fire control apparatus. She was nothing to fool around with . One of her sister ships, the auxiliary cruiser Kormoran, got into close action with the regular Australian Navy cruiser Sydney, and sank this first-line warship! The well armed raider opened fire on the hapless Liberty with everything she had , once her skipper Horst Gerlach saw that the Hopkins was not going to stop. (Of the Stier 's previous twenty victims, only one had failed to stop and surrender, immediately. Stier had aboard a crowd of captured merchantman crews.) The Hopkins 's crew rallied as best they could. Ensign Kenneth M. Willett, USNR , in charge of the naval armed guard, was wounded by a shell fragment on his way to the 4in gun. Second Mate Joseph Layman got his 37mm guns into action , hitting the Stier repeatedly with light shot at the close range of 1,000 yards. The Liberty 's machine guns joined in , and soon after Ensign Willett got the four-incher going with a steady, accurate fire. But the German fire was overwhelming, and the whole gun c rew was soon killed or 22
wounded, leaving Willett alone. Finally the magazine blew up, silencing Willett and his gun-but not before the Stier had been badly holed by its fire . Captain Paul Buck of the Hopkins had told his men that he meant to fight if he encountered German raiders , and that is what they had been doing. But now, with e ngine room ablaze, the ship stopped and sinking, with her guns silenced , Buck reluctantly gave the order to abandon ship. ¡ While the men were leaving, they heard the four-incher speak again. Five shots rang out, every one hitting the Stier or Tannenfels. What had happened was this : during the voyage Cadet Midshipman Edwin O ' Hara , at 18 the youngest man aboard, had been practicing at the gun with his friend Ensign Willett. Coming up from the blazing inferno of the engine room to see Willett being carried away, he climbed into the gun tub. There he found five shells, and single-handed he loaded and fired them. With that, the 20-minute fight was over. Rain closed in over the drifting boats and liferafts of the Hopkins. Only after the war was over did the 15 survivors of the ship's complement of 57 learn that the Stier, flooding through many holes punched by the four-incher, had to be abandoned and sunk , her crew and captives taken aboard the Tannenfels. After the Hopkins 's survivors stumbled ashore at a remote Brazilian fishing village, the Navy lieutenant sent to meet them said of them that they " were never for one moment beaten. After thirty days of being battered together on a cramped lifeboat , they were still lavishing praise on one another, helping one another." Cadet O'Hara did not survive the battle. Nor did Captain Buck or Ensign Willett of the gun crew. Later, a building in the US Merchant Marine Academy at King's Point was to be named for O'Hara ; a Liberty ship was named for Buck, and a destroyer escort for Willett . Only one officer survived , 2nd Assistant Engineer George Cronk . He brought the other 14 survivors to safety in Brazil after a 31-day boat journey, as recounted in Ian Millar's report , which speaks volumes for why this crew lived and fought so well together. The Germans were stunned by the loss of their auxiliary cruiser. Captain Gerlach of the Steir refused to be! ieve that the Hopkins had not been secretly rearmed as a cruiser herself. But Ludolf Petersen , another of the Stier 's officers, spoke the true epitaph for the Hopkins and her people: "We could not but feel that we had gone down at the hands of a gallant foe . ... that Liberty ship ended a very successful raiding voyage. We could have sunk many more ships."
"The Type of Man Your Brother Was ..." by Ian A. Millar We tend to look upon the battles as being fought by ships, planes and tanks, and we seem to forget that all of these were manned by people. There is a very serious neglect of the part played by the seamen of the merchant marine. If they receive any credit, it is hard to find. And another aspect of World War II history that seems wrong to me is the good guys versus bad guys type of recollection . All the men who served at sea during the war were doing nothing less than we would expect of our own people. For these reasons I set out some time ago to find out all I could about such actions as the Hopkins-Stier battle. The most important element of my research is the human participant-like 2nd Assistant Engineer George Cronk, whose friend Chief Engineer Rudolf A. Rutz was lost in the battle. Here is what Cronk said about his friend in a letter to Rutz's sister : I arrived at my home here in Bessemer a few days ago and found a letter here from you asking about your brother Rudolph Rutz. Yes, he was on the same ship as me, I was his Second Engineer and his friend as well . He and I were together all the time the battle was going on, carrying wounded men out of the engine room and off the decks and out of their quarters where they were shelled in their beds. When the Abandon Ship signal was given he was putting life preservers on the wounded men. He told me to go to the boat deck and that is the last anyone saw of him. I helped lower the only boat left, then I saw the Captain throw his code book overboard and walk to the other end of the bridge. I went to that side but could not find him and by that time I was trapped by fire started by incendiary shells and had to jump overboard and swim for it. I made the life boat in about 20 minutes and managed to pick up nine men out of the water and off the rafts. I am the only surviving officer. I lost over 40 pounds weight on my twenty-two hundred mile, thirty one day trip to the coast of Brazil but am feeling better now and will be on my way to the Pacific Coast to take out another ship soon. I 'MIIlt to tell you that with the type of men that your brother was this country can never lose a war and you can be very proud of him for he was a square shooter and one of the merriest men I have ever known and here's hoping for you and the rest of his family the very best of luck . I remain your friend , G EORGE S. CRONK
Mr. Millar is founder ofSons and Daughters of US Merchant Marine fleterans of World War 2, 1806 Bantry Trail, Kernersville NC
27284. NMHS Cloth Patch $4.50 True gold braid on black bac kground , ship and sea embroidered in white and blue. Perfect for blaze r, CPO, sweater or parka. 3 inches. Send $4.50 check to NMHS, 132 Maple St. , Croton-on-Hudson, NY 10520 Members may ded uct 10 % membership di scount .
SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1985