CONFIDENTIAL
From: Cadet-Midshipman Robert W. BARTON, Second Class
(D-1), USMMCC
To: Supervisor, U.S. Merchant Marine Cadet Corps
Via: District Cadet Supervisor, New York.
Subject: Loss of vessel SS RICHARD CASWELL; Report on
1. The writer’s vessel was proceeding from Buenos Aires to Rio de Janiero with a cargo of hides, canned beef, tungsten and manganese ore and fertilizer. The vessel traveled alone and unescorted. The ship was scheduled to join a convoy at Rio for the voyage to the United States.
2. On July 16, 1943, while in position about 250 miles off-shore, and one day’s run to Rio, the ship was struck by a torpedo, striking in the engine room on the starboard side. The writer had just gone on watch when he was ordered by the First Officer to go down to the main deck and tell the Bos’n to trim the vantilators on #4 and #5 holds. The writer found the Bos’n in the crew’s messroom, and had just delivered the Mate’s orders, when the torpedo struck. Every man immediately went to his boat station and “abandon ship” was ordered.
3. The writer proceeded to his boat station and was standing by for the boat to be lowered. The writer’s duty was to release the gripe which he did as soon as abandon ship was sounded. While the writer was standing by waiting for the boat to go down, the radio operator came down to the boat deck with the emergency radio. He asked the writer to see that the set was put into the boat as he had to return to the radio shack to send an S.O.S. The writer secured a line to the set and called for the men in the boat to receive it. Either they could not her me or they thought it was someone’s baggage. At any rate, they released the falls and pulled away from the ship.
4. At about this time, the second torpedo hit the ship, again in the engine room, and flying debris made the writer seek cover under the wing of the bridge. After the debris had stopped falling, the writer looked back along the deck, and saw that the ship had split in two. Since there were no boats or rafts in sight, the writer decided to jump over the side. The writer went over to the port side of the ship on the main deck. The sea was fairly rough at this time and the writer was washed back on to the ship. He then started across #3 hatch which was pretty well under water. The Bos’n had some wire cargo runners piled on top of the hatch which the writer could not see because of the hatch being partly covered with water, and he got caught in the wires. The writer got loose by pulling himself up the shrouds of the mainmast. He soon got clear of the ship and got hold of a piece of puddin boom that had broken free of the ship. The writer hung on to this until he was picked up by one of the lifeboats.
Subject: Loss of vessel SS RICHARD CASWELL; Report on
5. Four days later the survivors were picked up by the Argentine freighter MEXICO and landed in Rio Grande de Sol, Brazil on July 23rd. All the survivors, including the cadet-Midshipman assigned to the subject vessel, were then flown to the United States by the Army Transport Command.
6. The writer has been told that the submarine which attacked the subject vessel surfaced after the ship disappeared, but the writer was not in a position to see it, and therefore can not give a description of it.
ROBERT W. BARTON
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FIRST ENDORSEMENT:
7 September 1943.
To: S-CC
1. Forwarded.
G. F. FELTUS
Acting