Ohio

 It was a fairly dreary weekend down here in the Texas Hill Country.  Just enough rain to get you wet and make drivers stupid yet not add a lot of moisture to the soil, but at least the wind was blowing and the temps were in the 40's.  So...not a lot of encouragement to go out and do things.  We did have our first fire of the season, though.

Which was nice.  Accompanied by a wee dram of Sarge's best Whisky, Bruichladdich Islay Barley.

Sarge, you need to change the combo on your liquor cabinet lock. 1234 is not all that secure.

As I said, the weather was kinda dreary and the next step in the desk project is staining and painting. However, the sanding step left dust all over the shop, so the weekend was spent with spurts of cleaning it up, then leaving for a while to let the dust settle (quite literally) again, then clean up more, rinse and repeat all weekend long.

Big shout out to John from Philly for his recommended dust mask.  Worked like a champ, much more comfortable, more effective and, added bonus, I could see.  My glasses didn't fog up.

But, the cleaning and weather meant I had to find other means to amuse myself as Mrs J was putting the final packages together for SIL's side of the Family's annual Christmas Vacation trip as well as the Wine Cruise she's putting together for our Wine Maker Friends and 45 of their closest wine drinking buddies.  Mrs J and I will go along as the adult supervision...of course.

So, I had a lot of time on my hands, and "Idle hands....", so I spent some time watching videos and came across a very interesting one from "The History Guy".

OK, now that we're back to our normal Bat Time and Bat Channel (if you don't recognize that, your misspent childhood is not my concern), I think I'll wax poetic about Ohio.

No, Beans, not that anti-war Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song, nor a Mid-Western State.  No, we're going to talk about an Ohio with Texan roots.

 One thing that amazes me the more I study military history is how many battles, even wars, seem to have turned on the smallest thing.  Sarge has commented frequently about Waterloo and the timely arrival of Blucher.  The timely arrival of the Dive Bombers at Midway is another.

Well, Ohio is another of those "skin of the teeth" moments.

The Ohio I'm going to talk about is the SS Ohio, a tanker launched in 1940 for Texas Oil Company.  (You may know that company as Texaco.)  In any case, at the time of her launching, she was the largest and fastest tanker afloat, built to carry over 9000 tons of oil at a design speed of 16 knots.  Sea trials would establish that she was capable of 19 knots.

She spends the next couple of years ferrying oil between Texas and New York.

I apologize for the quality, this was the only picture I could find pre-story. Source

It's now 1942.  The war isn't going swimmingly for the British.  Rommel is earning his "Desert Fox" nickname in Africa.  However, the island of Malta (archipelago actually), is strategically located to interdict his supply lines.  The Axis powers, mainly the Italians initially then increasingly the Germans, have blockaded it and have been seriously bombing it for months.  Convoys have been sent to resupply it, but have been unsuccessful with anything other than Submarines and Torpedo Boats.

Not much cargo carrying ability on either.

There hasn't been a successful convoy resupply in months and it's beginning to look like surrender is inevitable.  The British want to try one more time to get supplies, primarily fuel, to Malta.  They want this convoy to be very heavily escorted and sailing as fast as possible.

You beginning to see the handwriting on the wall?

So, it's Summer 1942, the Captain of Ohio, had received orders to put in to Galveston and take on a load of gasoline and deliver it to England.  He does so and after offloading is awaiting orders for his next assignment only to find that the British commandeer his ship, replacing he and his crew with a British crew.  She undergoes a hurried upgrade to maximize her resistance to battle damage in preparation for duty.

Seeking to take advantage of a period of moonless darkness in mid August, the Ohio sails for Gibraltar.  Rendezvousing with the rest of the convoy, they sail for Malta on the 9th.

The convoy is composed of 14 merchantman of which Ohio is the only one carrying the critical fuel.  Protecting them are 2 Battleships, 4 Aircraft Carriers, 7 cruisers and 33 destroyers.  Churchill realizes that if this convoy, most especially the Ohio, does not resupply Malta, it will be forced to surrender.  This will supply Germany with middle eastern oil, close access to the Suez Canal, isolate Australia and New Zealand, and quite probably force Great Britain out of the war.

The convoy is attacked relentlessly from the start.  An Aircraft Carrier, HMS Eagle, is sunk.  Ohio is hit by a torpedo.

 According to the source, this is an actual shot of Ohio being torpedoed.
Source

Then a Stuka is shot down and crashes in to her.  A short while later, two bombs straddle her and lift her out of the water.  (I've come to understand that for ships to be lifted out of the water is a "bad" thing, causes structural damage or something).  Another bomb hits her boiler room shutting off power.  The boiler is relit (which took about 20 minutes, AKA an eternity when you're motionless in the midst of an air attack.)  Ohio resumes course, at 13 knots now, when another bomb hits and knocks out the fuel pumps.  Again, they are repaired and Ohio begins to get underway even more slowly.  However damage will shortly cause Ohio to come to a halt.  A destroyer attaches lines to her and begin towing her toward Malta.  However, another set of bombs hits exactly where the torpedo had hit breaking her back.  Slowly taking on water (another "bad" thing) Ohio is now being towed by two destroyers however damage to her steering is making this extremely difficult.  Two more destroyers come along either side of her and nudge her in the proper direction.

Source

They are very near Malta now as another attack begins.  Unfortunately for the Germans, the ships are now within range of Spitfires on Malta and the attackers are driven off.

Source

Ohio was so badly damaged, she had to be scuttled at the dock in order to offload her fuel.  Yet, Malta had been resupplied.  Of the 14 merchant ships in the convoy, 9 were sunk only 5 made it to Malta, 3 of whom were damaged.  Ohio was one of those.  Of the combatants, 1 Aircraft Carrier was sunk, another damaged.  2 Cruisers and 1 Destroyer were sunk.  4 Destroyers were damaged.


Was it worth it?

In September, 100,000 tons of Axis shipping was sunk attempting to reinforce and resupply Rommel in preparation for his second attack on El Alamein in October.  He was defeated.

It is entertaining to play "what if" in this situation and The History Guy does.  It is not out of the realm of possibility that if Ohio hadn't reached port, Great Britain may have been forced out of the war.  Could the US project power from the US to invade Europe as well as fight the Japanese?

Things could be quite different if only a few little things had happened differently.

But then, that's life!

Here's the video that started this. Skip to the 2 minute mark if you don't want to watch his sales pitch.

Sources:
US Merchant Marine Website (doesn't look like it's an official site, but it had good info)
Wikipedia-  SS Ohio