Life on the sea was never pretty, and the seamen of the early 20th century had to endure much that modern seamen are fortunate enough to seldom experience. Limbs were easily lost and lives were lost just as quickly, but the men and the occasional woman of the sea continued to answer the call of the open blue, no matter how bleak the realities were for such a life.
Dismasted and Bottom Up
Imagine being out at sea back in 1902. There were no cell phones and no way to contact land or other ships in a time of crisis. If you were out at sea, you and the crew were truly on your own. And anything could happen.
On August 13, 1902, the four-masted schooner, John D. Tallant, left Puget Sound. In its cargo was timber being taken to Mollendo, Peru, but the ship never arrived. This in itself was not unusual. Sometimes ships were taken off course during a storm and sometimes they sank, never to be seen again.
However, almost a full year after her departure, the John D. Tallant reappeared in the Marshall Islands. Her masts had been broken off and she came to shore bottom upwards.
A search was made for her crew, but no remains were found. Everyone who had been on the ship were simply gone and lost to the sea. [1]
Lost at Sea
The Sterna, a four-masted Danish ship, was on the last stretch of her voyage in 1923 to South Wharf in Melbourne when the clouds started gathering overhead. The winds picked up, tossing the ship to and fro, and lightening filled the sky.
Knowing full well that the storm was going to unleash extreme violence on his ship, the captain sent all available hands up to shorten the sails, but then the call came ringing out, “Man overboard!”
Not wanting to leave a man behind, the third officer and four seamen jumped into a lifeboat and headed out to where they thought the man had fallen.
Not ten minutes later, the storm let loose with full force and all the remaining men on the ship had to scramble frantically to keep the ship afloat. It was the last time any of the rescue crew were seen as huge waves crashed over the deck and visibility dropped to under fifty yards.
That night, after the storm had finally passed, the crew of the Sterna set off flares and lit the rockets, hoping that the men in the little lifeboat had somehow survived.
For three whole days the Sterna stayed by, waiting for some sign of the men, but they were never heard from or seen again. The Sterna finally left, carrying her sad news to Melbourne. [2]
Dead Seamen’s Effects
When a seaman died on the job, he often left a wife and children behind, or even parents, who relied on his income to buy their meager necessities. These dependents often got nothing in return for their loved one’s service and loss of life, and were left behind to endure extreme poverty.
By the early 20th century, steps were being taken so that wives and children might receive compensation for their loss, although oftentimes it was the seamen themselves who provided some monetary care for the widows.
In 1904, on the French ship named Jacques, a rare auction was held. Two of the crew had just been killed on the sea and their personal effects were being auctioned off to the remaining crew members.
The captain acted as auctioneer and all the items sold for a hefty price because the money, as the seamen knew, was being sent back to the families and widows of the lost men. [3]
Oh, Rats
In 1911, a seaman reported on his experience with rats on a ship from Liverpool.
On their way to Peru with a boatload of horses, the rats thrived on the corn and grain brought on board to feed the shipment. However, after the horses were unloaded, the ship was loaded with guano to be used as fertilizer back in England. Suddenly, the rats had no good food to eat and they resorted to snacking on the seamen:
“[T]he rats soon began to take liberties, making a meal… of the hard skin or nails of our feet as we lay in our bunks asleep. Many a time have I jumped out of my bunk to chase them away, but it was no use, back they would come. I would feel them running across me as I lay in my watch below… [T]he watch on deck have caught over sixty, and had them all strung on a line to show the skipper.”
With rats being such an immense problem on board ships, some captains got rather creative when it came to getting rid of a few. For instance, back in 1905 it was reported that a captain of a rat infested ship moored alongside of a ship carrying cheese in its cargo. At nightfall the captain used tarp to make a small bridge from his ship to the cheese ship and, attracted by the smell of a good meal, the rats marched on over to the other ship. [4][5]
Cannibals
There were tales of shipwrecks and survivors turning to cannibalism just to live another day, but the scarier stories involved real cannibals in places such as New Guinea and Vanuatu.
In 1926, Captain Courqueux of France shared his story about his meeting with the cannibals of Vanuatu. Having had safe contact with the island cannibals in the past, the captain believed that it would be safe to take his wife to shore with him.
As they rode to shore, the tribe crowded the beach. Many of them held old rifles and appeared to be in an angry mood. One of the island men lifted up his rifle and took aim at the captain’s wife, but a friend from a previous visit lunged at the man with the rifle and the shot missed its mark.
The captain turned his boat around, determined to protect his wife. As he did so, he and his accompanying officers saw a line of bodies tied to bamboo stakes. The fires were ready and the tribe was preparing for their feast before the Europeans interrupted them.
Captain Courqueux and his crew were fortunate, as many shipwrecked men who made their way to the island became food for the locals. [6]
Yellow Fever
Diseases and infections have always been a serious worry for seamen. In the late 1800s, plague ships dotted the seas, but eventually another problem arose by the name of yellow fever.
One early instance of yellow fever happened in 1902. The Comliebank, a British ship, left Panama only to have four of its crew show signs of the infection a few days later. The men quickly succumbed to the infection and were buried at sea.
The captain needed to replace the lost men, so his ship turned around and returned to Panama to recruit new workers.
Again, the ship left Panama and while on its journey to Port Townsend in Washington state, two more men died from yellow fever.
For fear of spreading the yellow fever, the ship was sent to Diamond Point where it and its men were quarantined until such time as they were deemed healthy enough to leave. [7]
Finding Dead Bodies
Finding the dead body of a crew member was rather common. After all, there were many things that could go wrong on board a ship at sea.
Back in 1924, a crewman of the steamer Roxen phoned police to report a dead body in the hold. When the police arrived at Port Adelaide, they were shown the remains of the man and it was quickly determined that the victim had fallen to his death through an open hatchway.
After the body was removed, it was taken to the morgue where it was finally identified as the ship’s watchman. He was on duty the day before and was last seen at 2 a.m. After that, he was not seen again until his body was discovered.
Finding dead crewmen was not the only problem met by seamen. Sometimes it was the passengers they had to watch out for, as in the case of the French Massillia, back in 1928.
As the men were about to unload the passengers’ baggage, a suspicious smell caught their attention. Upon searching through the baggage, the men discovered the body of a young man stuffed inside a trunk.
Of course, none of the passengers claimed the trunk and there were no identification marks on it or the corpse. The remains were claimed by the police and there was no further word on the investigation into the origin of the body. [8] [9]
Running into Sharks
While there are plenty of stories of seamen being bitten by sharks, there were far more news reports published about ships running into sharks than seamen being attacked.
The S.S. Mooltan ran into a shark while passing through the Red Sea back in 1929. Measuring at approximately 30 feet, the shark was impaled on the ship’s bow. The ship had to be stopped and the crew had to remove its remains before they could continue on their voyage to Australia.
As the Monowai approached Port Melbourne in 1934, it, too, ran into a large shark. Impaled on the ship’s stem, the shark remained in position until the ship was docked.
While larger ships survived running into sharks, smaller ships were not so fortunate. In 1933, a fishing boat off the coast of Argyll, Scotland, ran into a large shark. It smashed through the bulwarks and the ship began to sink. Fortunately, another ship was nearby and the damaged ship was lashed and saved from being completely lost. [10] [11] [12]
Bodies from the Clan Ronald Wreck
When bodies from shipwrecks washed up on the shores, it was often the women who would collect the bodies, clean them, and see to a proper burial. No doubt, these were often the wives and mothers of seamen who could only hope that if their loved ones did not return alive, that some other family would take the care to bury any washed up remains.
This happened in 1909 when the steamer Clan Ronald wrecked near Edithburgh, South Australia. Three seamen bodies washed up on shore and several local women came to care for their remains.
They washed the faces of the dead and placed them each in a wooden coffin. A long trench was dug and the remains were buried side-by-side.
Those who survived the wreck were placed in the Prince Alfred Sailors’ Home where they were able to recover from their ordeal. [13]
Struck by a Meteor
It should have been a routine voyage. The ship, called the Eclipse, left from Newcastle and was making its way to San Francisco back in 1908. Eighty-five days passed by without much trouble, until the ship met with an almost deadly hurricane.
The winds blew the ship and lightning lit up the sky, but the ship and the crew of fifteen men held on. Mother nature was giving them hell, but the heavens had something else in store for them.
From above, a meteor came barreling down. It struck the ship’s foremast, sending splinters of wood into the air, before it tore through the deck and exited through the ship’s hull.
The ship took on water, but the men were determined to save her. For four days and nights the men worked in shifts manning the pumps, but nothing could stop the water from overtaking their efforts.
On the fifth day, the captain and crew took to the lifeboats. As they rowed away, they watched their ship take on more water and slowly sink into the depths of the sea. However, their troubles were not over.
For two weeks the men rowed their boats under the scorching sun. For rations, they were each given two gills of water and two biscuits a day. It was not enough to keep them all alive and eventually three of the men died near the Hawaiian Islands. The bodies of the dead were dropped into the water where, the survivors claimed, sharks rose up from the depths to collect them.
Shortly afterwards, the men reached one of the small islands. The indigenous people came to the men’s rescued and carried the feeble men on their backs to shelter and safety. The men were later taken to Honolulu where news of their adventure was reported to newspapers across the world. [14]
