SS Pedernales
Encyclopedia
SS Pedernales was a lake tanker
Lake tanker
Lake tankers were small, , specially designed ships that carried the crude oil, pumped from beneath Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela, to the three off-shore refineries located on the Dutch islands of Aruba and Curaçao...
of the World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and post war eras. She was built in 1938 in Monfalcone
Monfalcone
Monfalcone is a town and comune of the province of Gorizia , located on the coast of the Gulf of Trieste. Monfalcone means "Mount of Falcon" in Italian....
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, and sailed under the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
flag. Pedernales was severely damaged in a torpedo attack on 16 February 1942 while anchored at Aruba
Aruba
Aruba is a 33 km-long island of the Lesser Antilles in the southern Caribbean Sea, located 27 km north of the coast of Venezuela and 130 km east of Guajira Peninsula...
. The damaged ship was cut into three sections. The fore and aft sections were joined together and the ship made her way to Baltimore, Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
, to be rebuilt. The middle section was left in Aruba and, after being used for a number of years as a target by Dutch
Netherland
Netherland is a critically acclaimed novel by Joseph O'Neill. It concerns the life of a Dutchman living in New York in the wake of the September 11 attacks who takes up cricket and starts playing at the Staten Island Cricket Club.-Plot summary:...
gunners after the war, has become a scuba diving site. The rebuilt portion of the tanker, later renamed Esso Pedernales and Katendrecht, was scrapped in 1959.
Career
SS Pedernales was completed in September 1938 by Cantieri Riuniti dell'Adriatico of MonfalconeMonfalcone
Monfalcone is a town and comune of the province of Gorizia , located on the coast of the Gulf of Trieste. Monfalcone means "Mount of Falcon" in Italian....
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. She operated as a lake tanker, sailing from Lake Maracaibo
Lake Maracaibo
Lake Maracaibo is a large brackish bay in Venezuela at . It is connected to the Gulf of Venezuela by Tablazo Strait at the northern end, and fed by numerous rivers, the largest being the Catatumbo. It is commonly considered a lake rather than a bay or lagoon, and at 13,210 km² it would be the...
in Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
to the refinery at Aruba
Aruba
Aruba is a 33 km-long island of the Lesser Antilles in the southern Caribbean Sea, located 27 km north of the coast of Venezuela and 130 km east of Guajira Peninsula...
.
On the morning of 16 February 1942, German
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
U-boat
U-boat
U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...
U-156, under the command of Korvettenkapitän Werner Hartenstein
Werner Hartenstein
Gustav Julius Werner Hartenstein was a Korvettenkapitän with the Kriegsmarine during World War II and commander of . He was also a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross . The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or successful military...
, commenced an attack
Attack on Aruba
The Attack on Aruba was an attack on oil installations and tankers by Axis submarines during World War II. On 16 February 1942, a German U-boat attacked the small island of Aruba in the first shelling of American soil by Axis forces during the war. Other submarines patrolled the area for shipping...
on oil tankers at anchor in San Nicolas Harbor in Aruba
Aruba
Aruba is a 33 km-long island of the Lesser Antilles in the southern Caribbean Sea, located 27 km north of the coast of Venezuela and 130 km east of Guajira Peninsula...
as part of Operation Neuland. Torpedoes fired from the U-boat sank tanker and damaged Pedernales and the American tanker . Pedernales was beached by two tugs and abandoned.
Later, the hulk was towed to the Lago Dry Dock on Aruba where she was cut into three sections. The fore and aft sections were joined together and the ship made way under her own power to Baltimore, Maryland, where she had a new midsection installed, and continued her career.
After the end of World War II, the tanker continued sailing under her same name until 1957 when she was renamed Esso Pedernales. After another renaming the following year to Katendrecht, she was scrapped at Rotterdam
Rotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
in 1959.