Soon before her battle-to-the-death with the Stephen H opkins, the stern gun aboard Stier, common on merchant ships at sea in 1942, is the only weapon visible. (WS Bilddienst)
the still unidentified Liberty took several hits as Captain Buck turned his ship's stern toward the two German raiders. Shrapnel struck Armed Guard commander Ensign Kenneth M . W illett in the stomach as he rushed aft to direct fire fro m Stephen Hopkins's fo ur-inch cannon. Despite the wo und, W illett remained at his post as the "ugly duckling" returned accurate fire. At 0905 , Stier took separate fo ur-inch shell hits in her steering gear and engineering spaces, starting fires, stopping her engines, and disrupting electrical services. M eanwhile, the Hopkins was receiving terrible punishment from Stier' s main battery of six 5.9-inch guns. Direct hits on the engine room extinguished the Liberty ship's boilers, and she gradually slowed to a stop. Another hit aft exploded the magazine for the four-inch gun, igniting a huge fire. Two hits wrecked the amidships deckhouse and demolished the radio shack, as the Hopkins's SO S calls went unanswered. Ablaze in several places, it was now obvious that the Liberty ship could not long stay afloat. Captain Buck gave the order to abandon ship about 0920, just before he was killed by another shell hit on the bridge from Stier. The crew attempted to escape the sinking vessel in her boats and life rafts; Ensign W illett was cut down by machine gun fi re as he did so. One life boat under command of Seco nd Engin eer George D . Cronk pulled away from the Hopkins carrying 19 of the 57 merchant mariners and Armed Guard just before she disappeared beneath the sea at 0955. But before she sank, engineering cadet Edwin J. O 'H ara found the 4-incher still functioning and fired the last five shells, incredibly striki ng Stierwith all five, before he, too, went down with the ship. Conditions aboard Stier were deteriorating. She had suffered 15 hits from her opponent's four-inch gun and had been 34
survivors rowed ashore on a beach 22 miles north of Rio de Janeiro. Four of the five wounded sailors aboard had died during the harrowing 31 days afloat. The Stier-Stephen Hopkins battle remains unique in maritime history because it is the only instance in which an auxiliary cruiser was sunk by a merchant ship it had attacked. Perhaps the only comparable incident occurred in November 1941, when the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran and the light cruiser HMAS Sydney engaged in an analogous internecine battle off the west coast of Australia. The conduct of Stephen Hopkins's crew in her seemingly hopeless battle with Stier received universal accolades after her fate was revealed by the survivors who landed in Brazil. The US Maritime Commission honored the "ugly duckling" by naming her one of the "Gallant Ships" of World War II, rightfully commending "the stark courage of her valiant crew in their heroic stand." Armed Guard leader Ensign Kenneth M. Willett was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for his heroic conduct. Noted Royal Navy historian Captain Stephen W. Roskill, in his three-volume series The War at Sea 1939-1945, asserted that the crew of the Stephen Hopkins "fought an action of which all the Allied Na vies and merchant marines would be proud. " Surprisingly, German reaction to the Stier-Stephen Hopkins battle overlooked the stark fact that a lightly armed "ugly duckling" had caused the loss of an auxiliary cruiser carrying six times her firepower. The Navy War Staff(Seekriegsleitung) opinion of the incident asserted that Stier' screw had acquitted themselves "courageously and in the best tradition of German seamanship and fighting spirit." Perhaps a more objective German appraisal came later from Vice Admiral Friedrich Ruge in his World War II maritime history, Der Seekrieg, in which he described succinctly how Stier met her end: "She encountered the US Liberty ship Stephen Hopkins which bravely used her guns, and to good effect." Thus did one "ugly duckling" become a warnor. .t
peppered with 37mm and machine gun bullets. A major fire roared unchecked forward, with flames and smoke drifting aft . Burning fuel oil threatened to explode the 19 to rpedoes stored in number two hold. At 10 14, Stier's main engines were again running, but they failed completely at 1025 . Captain Horst Gerlach then consulted with Stier's officers and decided to abandon ship. Gerlach ordered his men to set scuttling charges, and requested Tannenfels to stand by to receive Stier's crew. T he scuttling charges exploded at 1149, and Stier slowly sank beneath the sea, taking two dead crewmen with her. Stier' s surviving crew used their lifeboats to transfer to Tannenfels, whose crew gave up their bunks to 30 wounded sailors. As the supply ship steamed back through the Atlantic and the Bay of Biscay to Le Verdon, two Stier crewmen killed in the battle with the Hopkins were buried at sea. During this voyage home, Captain Gerlach reconstructed his log, with assistance from observers aboard Tannenfels. In describing the armament and conduct of the Stephen Hopkins, whose identity was still unknown to him, Gerlach wrote: "On the stern a l 5cm (5.9-inch] gun, forward two guns of between 10.2cm and 12.7cm, amidships two of this calibre forward of the funnel and two abaft it as well as a few 2cm and 4cm antiaircraft guns. T he enemy's fire control and discipline were shown to be very good." T his was a substantial overestimate of his opponent's firepowerGerlach's own 5.9-inch gun threw shot three times heavier than the American merchant vessel's antiquated 4 incher. Clearly, the Stephen Hopkins's Armed Guard gunners had made a big impression on Gerlach. Mr. Langenberg is a retired Rear Admiral of Meanwhile, the sunken Liberty ship's the US Naval Reserve. His writings have lifeboat containing 19 surviving crewmen been published by US Naval Institute Prosteered slowly fo r the east coast of Brazil. ceedings, Naval War College Review, NaOn 27 O ctober the lifeboat containing 15 val History and other periodicals.
SEA HISTORY 91 , WINTER 1999-2000