uboat.net
Kapitänleutnant Peter-Erich Cremer SEA HISTORY 180, AUTUMN 2022
naval history and heritage command, usn
made for tugs to rendezvous at the position where Java Arrow had been anchored. The office personnel informed him that two tugs would immediately be dispatched out of Port Everglades. Hennechin next requested that the Coast Guard take him and some of his men back out to the ship. Underway aboard a Coast Guard picket boat, all onboard wondered whether the tanker would still be afloat when they got there or whether, since her abandonment, she had been given a coup de grâce by another U-boat or, worse yet, whether she might again be attacked once they were back onboard. Nerves must have been on edge for all, including one resident of Fort Pierce, whom Hennechin had talked into accompanying the salvage group. He was a welder who was there to cut the anchor chain using an acetylene cutting torch. The survivors’ report made no mention of the name of the welder, so he remains an unsung hero of the Java Arrow story. Undoubtedly to the relief of all, the tanker was found afloat and at the same level in the water as when they had left her. Once aboard, Hennechin, his men, and the welder awaited the arrival of the tugs. When they made the scene, a towing hawser was passed up to the ship and secured at the bow, and the welder burned through the anchor chain.
SS Java Arrow, two weeks before she was attacked off the coast of Florida by U-333. Under escort of the Coast Guard picket boat, a slow and hazardous tow then got underway toward Port Everglades. Arriving there safely, Java Arrow was eventually repaired and put back into service with a new name, Kerry Patch. At the position where Cremer’s other 6 May 1942 victim, the Amazone, sank, the depth of the water was such that the profile of the wreck created a hazard to navigation, requiring the placement of a sea buoy (12-A) near it. A few years later the upper portion of the Amazone wreck that lay dangerously close to the surface was demolished by explosives, and the 12-A sea buoy was removed. The remains of that wreck, as well as that of the Halsey south and west of the Amazone, became attractions for a great variety of game fish and for the sport fishermen who seek them. Although long ago removed, the old 12-A buoy number became the inspiration for the name of a Fort Pierce seafood restaurant. Java Arrow’s survivors, as well as those of Cremer’s other victims from Halsey and Amazone, were lucky that night that they had not met the fate as the crew of another American tanker, W. D. Anderson, which had been torpedoed the previous February off South Hutchinson Island, northeast of Hobe Sound. W. D. Anderson was loaded with petroleum cargo that, ignited by a torpedo hit, burst into flames. With the
exception of one man, her crew of 36 officers and men died with their ship. That sole survivor had dived into the water upon the torpedo’s impact; by nothing short of a miracle, he was later sighted and picked up by a patrol boat. Despite the loss of more than 6,000 seamen who sailed in harm’s way during the war, it would not be until 1988 that members of the World War II oceangoing US merchant marine were administratively awarded veteran status under Public Law 95-202, the GI Improvement Bill of 1977. Captain Charles Dana Gibson (1928–2019) was a licensed Tugmaster, Oceans, and Master of Inspected Steam and Motor Vessels, 500 tons, Oceans, Issue 8. He played a prominent historian’s role in the 1988 court decision that granted veterans’ status to members of the American oceangoing merchant marine who actively sailed between 7 December 1941 and 15 August 1945. Captain Gibson was the author/co-author of eight books on aspects of maritime history and the recipient of numerous awards including the Distinguished Service Award given by the US Merchant Marine Academy, the Captain K. C. Torrens Award from the Council of A merican Master Mariners, and the K. Jack Bauer Award given by the North American Society for Oceanic History. 29