M. J. Scanlon (Id. No. 3513)
1918-1919
The Navy retained the name carried by this vessel at the time of her acquisition.
(Id. No. 3513: dead weight 8,100; length 377'6¾" (overall); beam 51'0"; draft 28'1"(mean); depth of hold 38'0"; speed 10.5 knots; complement 70; armament 1 4-inch, 1 3-inch)
M. J. Scanlon, a single-screw, steel-hulled cargo ship being built for the Hammond Lumber Co., was launched on Independence Day, 4 July 1918, at Camden, N.J., by the New York Shipbuilding Co.; and sponsored by Miss Helen M. Scanlon. Completed on 20 September 1918, M. J. Scanlon was acquired by the Navy from the U.S. Shipping Board (USSB) on 23 September 1918, and, having been assigned the identification number (Id. No.) 3513, was commissioned at Philadelphia the same day, Lt. Cmdr. Anton Hopen, USNRF, in command.
Assigned to the Naval Overseas Transportation Service, U.S. Army Account, M. J. Scanlon steamed to Norfolk, Virginia, on 26 September 1918, where she loaded a cargo of Army supplies. Thence, in mid-October, she sailed to New York to join a convoy to Europe. Departing New York on 1 November, she reached St. Nazaire, France, on the 18th, a week after the Armistice, and discharged her cargo. She took on ballast and coal at Brest early in December and on the 3rd sailed for the United States, reaching New York on the 20th, five days before Christmas. M. J. Scanlon returned to Philadelphia on 7 January 1919, and was decommissioned there on 27 January.
Returned to the USSB and thence to her original owner (Hammond Lumber Co.) M. J. Scanlon was renamed Missoula in 1925. She changed hands in 1935, being purchased by C. D. Mallory & Co., Inc., of New York, N.Y., and renamed Malamton. The U.S. Maritime Commission’s War Shipping Administration acquired the vessel in 1941, and, renamed Minotaur, was turned over to the Waterman Steamship Agency, Ltd., of Mobile, Alabama, under a general agency agreement at 3:00 p.m. on 28 November 1941 at Edgewater, N.J.
Minotaur served under the Waterman house flag for the rest of her days. Shortly before midnight on 8 January 1943, the German Type IXB submarine U-124 (Korvettenkapitän Johann Mohr commanding) began wreaking havoc on the 12-ship convoy TB-1, bound for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, torpedoing the U.S. tanker Broad Arrow and freighter Birmingham City. The former burned fiercely, illuminating the area as long as she remained afloat; the latter sank in three minutes. Korvettenkapitän Mohr made a second attack on the morning of 9 January, firing torpedoes at the U.S. freighter Collingsworth, only one of which hit the target.
While two torpedoes missed Collingsworth, one of the two hit Minotaur (Jens Jensen, Master), punching into the port side in her forward hold, the resulting large hole admitting an unstoppable flood of water. Master Jensen ordered the engines secured and the doomed ship abandoned, the 36-man merchant crew, 15-man Armed Guard detachment and one passenger, 52 souls all told, entering two lifeboats. Minotaur’s plunge, however, fouled one and capsized the other, throwing the survivors into the sea, drowning six men. Later that same day, the submarine chaser PC-577 rescued Minotaur’s survivors, taking them to Paramaribo, Surinam, and those from the other three ships sunk by U-124.
Updated, Robert J. Cressman
10 August 2022
