SS Flying Enterprise
Still from newsreel footage of SS Flying Enterprise when she was sinking, 10 January 1952
| |
History | |
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Name |
|
Owner |
|
Port of registry |
|
Builder | Consolidated Steel Corporation, Wilmington, California |
Yard number | 360 |
Launched | 7 January 1944 |
Completed | March 1944 |
In service | 18 March 1944 |
Identification | |
Fate | Sank 10 January 1952 |
General characteristics | |
Type | Type C1-B ship |
Tonnage | 6,711 GRT |
Length | 396 ft 5 in (120.83 m), pp |
Beam | 60 ft 1 in (18.31 m) |
Height | 25 ft 8 in (7.82 m) |
Propulsion | 2 x Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Co steam turbines, double reduction geared driving one screw. 4,000 hp (3,000 kW) |
Speed | 14 knots (26 km/h) |
Crew | 48, plus 10 passengers |
SS Flying Enterprise was a 6,711 ton Type C1-B ship which sank off Cornwall in 1952. She was built in 1944 as SS Cape Kumukaki for the United States Maritime Commission for use in World War II. The ship was sold in 1947 and operated in scheduled service under the name Flying Enterprise. At the end of 1951, on a voyage from Hamburg to the USA with mixed cargo and a few passengers, she was crippled by storm damage and shifting cargo. Passengers and crew were evacuated. Three weeks of effort to save the ship having failed, she sank in January and some of the cargo was later salvaged.
History
Cape Kumukaki was built by
After the end of
On 21 December 1951, under the command of
Four days later, on Christmas night, she encountered a storm in the
By 2 January 1952, the
The salvage attempts were criticised as the ship might have been saved by heading for the nearest safe harbour, Cork, rather than Falmouth.[citation needed]
A
Salvage
In 1960, some $210,000 of the $800,000-worth of cargo was salvaged from Flying Enterprise by the Italian company Sorima. Under a confidentiality clause in the salvage contract, further details of the recovered cargo were not released.[11]
In 1976 author Bjarne Bekker published "Flying Enterprise & Kurt Carlsen" that told the life story of Carlsen and his efforts to save the Flying Enterprise. Carlsen was buried at sea at the Flying Enterprise's final resting place on 8 February 1990 after a journey to Japan in a safety box on SS Jutlandia.[12][13]
Wreck discovery and diving
In June 2001 British technical divers, rediscovered the lost shipwreck of Flying Enterprise almost 50 years after she had sunk. Deep wreck diver Leigh Bishop had researched the whereabouts of the sinking and obtained information from British government departments on the wreck's approximate location. His photographs were enough to positively identify the wreck as that of the Flying Enterprise.
In 2002 the Danish expedition company No Limit Diving and the Danish filmmaker Lasse Spang Olsen aired a documentary, The Mystery of Flying Enterprise, to commemorate the 50th year of the sinking.
Later Bishop worked with US divers John Chatterton and Richie Kohler to film the wreck for a 2005 episode of the History Channel's Deep Sea Detectives. This became the deepest wreck dived of the 56 episodes made.[14]
The wreck now lies resting on her port side in a depth of 84 metres (276 ft) on the seabed of the western approaches to the English Channel. Bishop recovered artifacts from the site, which went on display for many years to the general public in the Cornish Maritime Museum.
Speculation into the sinking and cargo
Speculations about a shipment of
According to this documentary, information regarding the cargo is still (in the year 2002) regarded as confidential and details are not available from the CIA, FIA, Coast Guard and/or US Navy. On the other hand, there appears to have been no secret that the
Hammond Innes fictionalized the story with "The Wreck of the Mary Deare" published in 1956, about a decrepit and drifting freighter found by a salvager. A movie by the same name was made in 1959 and featured Gary Cooper and Charlton Heston. The plot features a salvager (Heston) boarding a drifting freighter with only the first officer onboard trying to run the ship by himself (Cooper). After the ship is finally caught up on some rocks, the two survive but Cooper has to face a court of inquiry which does not go well. Cooper and Heston then go on to investigate the sunken cargo, supposedly high-quality American aircraft engines.
Passengers and cargo
The passengers on board Flying Enterprise were Nicolai Bunjakowski, Nina Dannheiser, Maria Duttenhofer, Rolf Kastenholz, Leonore von Klenau, Curt and Elsa Müller and their children Liane and Lothar, and Frederick Niederbrüning.[2] All survived except Bunjakowski, who drowned during the rescue.[8]
An exceptionally rare violin by Vincenzo Rugeri was lost to the sea when the ship sank.[18]
Honours
Captain Carlsen was awarded a Lloyd's Silver Medal for Meritorious Service in recognition of his efforts to save Flying Enterprise,[5] and received a ticker-tape parade in New York City on January 17, 1952.
Kenneth Dancy was awarded the
In addition the ships owners made payments in respect of the bravery of the Turmoils crew – £750 to Captain Parker, £500 to Dancy and £1,250 to be distributed among the 26 crew; the gifts presented by the US Ambassador Walter Sherman Gifford[19]
References
- Specific
- ^ Colton, Tim. "Consolidated Steel Corporation, Long Beach and Wilmington CA". Shipbuildinghistory.com. The Colton Company. Archived from the original on 15 February 2009. Retrieved 14 February 2009.
- ^ a b c "Excerpt from 'Simple Courage'". USA Today. 24 July 2006. Retrieved 27 November 2008.
- ^ "Lloyds Register" (PDF). Plimsollshipdata. Retrieved 27 November 2008.
- ^ "SS Flying Enterprise (1944-1952)". Arendnet.com. Retrieved 27 November 2008.
- ^ a b c d e f "The FLYING ENTERPRISE Saga Page 1". Teesships. 10 December 2005. Archived from the original on 17 March 2010. Retrieved 27 November 2008.
- ^ "The FLYING ENTERPRISE Saga Page 3". Teesships. Archived from the original on 8 August 2003. Retrieved 27 November 2008.
- ^ a b "Marine Board of Investigation: SS FLYING ENTERPRISE, 26 February 1952" (PDF).
- ^ a b c d "The Flying Enterprise Saga". Teesships. p. 6. Archived from the original on 17 June 2009.
- ^ "The Flying Enterprise Lounge". Munster Pubs. Retrieved 27 November 2008.
- ^ "The Flying Enterprise" (PDF). Vindicatrix Association. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 July 2008. Retrieved 27 November 2008.
- ^ "Flying Enterprise • Kurt Carlsen story of life | English and Danish edition: www.bekkerbok.com". Archived from the original on 26 October 2020. Retrieved 5 July 2019.
- ISBN 9788788876758.
- History Channel. Deep Sea Detectives: "Captain's Last Stand" (Season 5, Episode 8, 24 April 2005)
- ^ "The Mystery of Flying Enterprise" (promotional flyer for documentary). Danish Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 4 November 2007.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-19-966109-1.
- ^ Bekker, Bjarne (2011). Flying Enterprise og Captain Carlsen (also available in English translation as Flying Enterprise and Captain Carlsen). Skårup: Bekkers ferlag.
- ^ "King Neptune Gets Rare Old Violins as Freighter Sinks". The Los Angeles Times. The Los Angeles Times. 11 January 1952.
- ^ a b "RFA Turmoil". Royal Fleet Auxilary Historical Society. Retrieved 27 May 2019.
- ^ "Kenneth Dancy". 11 August 2013 – via The Telegraph.
- General
- Brookes, Ewart (1957). Rescue Tug: The story of the Flying Enterprise and the salvage tug Turmoil. Dutton.
- Delaney, Frank (2006). Simple Courage - A True Story of Peril on the Sea. New York: Random House. pp. 292. ISBN 1-4000-6524-0.
- Holman, Gordon. Carlsen of the Flying Enterprise.
- Footage and interviews are featured in Catastrophe-No Safe Place (1980), hosted by Charles Bronson and Jill Ireland.
External links
Media related to Flying Enterprise (ship) at Wikimedia Commons
- Carlsens story of life told to Bjarne Bekker ISBN 978-87-88876-75-8
- Newsreel footage collection from Pathé News
- Photo of listing Flying Enterprise from the U.S. Navy Historical Center.
- Information and Photos of the wreck by Leigh Bishop.
- Newsreel story of Captain Kurt Carlsen and the Flying Enterprise
- Danish documentary: The Mystery of Flying Enterprise
- Watch Catastrophe-No Safe Place (1980) on the Internet Archive