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The terms “Pearl Harbor,” “9-11,” and “Katrina” conjure up
disastrous images for many Americans. But, how many have ever heard
the name “El Estero”? To New Yorkers in particular, this term should
strike a chord. It was the greatest man-made disaster in American
history that never happened.
It was spring of 1943, a time
when the outcome of World War II remained uncertain. Port facilities
around New York Harbor and northern New Jersey stowed convoy vessels
to capacity with thousands of troops and millions of tons of war
material destined for Europe, North Africa and the Pacific.
At 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 24th, the call went out to Jersey
City's Coast Guard barracks, “Ammo ship on fire! They want
volunteers!” The burning vessel was an antiquated 325-foot
Panamanian freighter pressed into wartime service named the El
Estero. S.S. El Estero was moored at Bayonne, New Jersey's Caven
Point pier to take on a full load of ordnance and ammunition.
Members of the Coast Guard's Explosives Loading Detail had just
overseen the last load to top off El Estero's holds with 1,365 tons
of ordnance, including huge “blockbuster” bombs, depth charges,
incendiary bombs, and anti-aircraft and small arms ammunition. At
5:20 p.m., the fire had broken out when a boiler flashback ignited
fuel oil floating on bilge water under the engine room. As the heat
of the fire grew and smoke billowed into the ship's passageways, the
engine room crew armed only with hand–held fire extinguishers gave
up the fight and fled the space.
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Rendering of the S.S. El Estero fire painted by noted marine artist
Austin Dwyer. Photo courtesy of Austin Dwyer. (Image courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard photo)
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Everyone at the barracks knew volunteering could result in a
fiery death for each of them. Most of them were aware that in 1917
the French ammunition ship Mont Blanc, loaded with 5,000 tons of
TNT, blew up in the harbor of the small city of Halifax, Nova
Scotia. The cataclysm instantly killed 1,500 residents, wounding
9,000 more and leveling a large part of the city. It was the largest
man-made explosion in history prior to the atomic bomb blast
witnessed at Hiroshima.
The Coast Guard seamen also knew that
the potential for a disaster in New York Harbor was far deadlier
than Halifax, with an explosive force that could obliterate the
port, portions of New Jersey and New York City and hundreds of
thousands of residents. Two nearly full ammunition ships, flying the
red Baker flag for “hot,” were moored near El Estero and a line of
railroad cars on the pier held an additional shipment of hundreds of
tons of munitions for a total of over 5,000 tons of explosives. Add
to this the nearby fuel storage tank farms at Bayonne and Staten
Island and obliteration appeared likely for the nation's largest
population center, including swaths of Jersey City, Bayonne, Staten
Island and New York City.
Soon after the smoke began wafting
out of El Estero, officer-in-charge Lt. j.g. Francis McCausland had
arrived on scene. He sent out the call to the Coast Guard barracks
and signaled two tugs to move the other munitions ships away from El
Estero. He also helped organize initial firefighting efforts with
over a dozen Coast Guardsmen already working on the pier. Meanwhile,
Army soldiers responsible for the railroad shipment moved the
ammunition boxcars off the pier. By 5:35 p.m., two ladder trucks and
three pumpers from the Jersey City Fire Department arrived as did
two 30-foot Coast Guard fireboats, which all began pouring water
into the smoking vessel. Shortly thereafter, members of the Coast
Guard Auxiliary mobilized and lieutenant commanders John Stanley and
Arthur Pfister arrived by fast boat from the Coast Guard
Captain-of-the-Port office, located near the Battery, and took
command of operations. Pfister, a retired battalion fire chief in
New York City and officer-in-charge of Coast Guard fireboats,
assumed overall responsibility for firefighting activities; while
Stanley focused his attention on operations within El Estero. It was
Stanley's first day on the job!
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A member of an Explosives Loading Detail monitors the loading of high explosives and the work of carpenters as they construct the bombs' wooden framework in the ship's hold.
(U.S. Coast Guard photo)
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The timing of the call to the Coast Guard barracks could
not have been worse. Saturday the 24th was the day before
Easter and members of the Explosives Loading Detail had been
anticipating liberty for quite some time. They had donned
their dress blues and pea coats and many had just finished
shining their shoes. But when the call came down for
volunteers, sixty Coast Guardsmen stepped forward, eager to
fight the fire. The men scrambled for the barracks door and
two waiting trucks. Witnesses described the scene in almost
comical terms with twenty dressed-up servicemen climbing
into a pick-up truck designed for no more than ten while the
other forty clutched any open space available on a larger
military truck. With men hanging from cabs and riding
fenders, while red lights flashed and horns blared, the
trucks sped down the eight-mile stretch of road to the
waterfront, passing longshoremen and dock workers fleeing in
the opposite direction to escape the fire. The trucks
screeched to a halt at the pier and the men hustled to the
burning ship to join their shipmates already fighting the
fire.
By 6:30 p.m., New York City fireboat John J.
Harvey and the City's new mammoth firefighting boat Fire
Fighter arrived on scene and ran dozens of high-pressure
hoses into El Estero for the Coast Guardsmen to douse the
burning vessel. The New York City fireboats pumped a
tremendous volume of water on board, but the oil fire still
gained ground. The flames escaped through El Estero's
skylights, hatches and scoop-like ventilators while the heat
cooked deck plates, blistered paint and scorched the soles
of the seamen's once-shiny shoes. The fire's intensity
spread the conflagration from the bilges to all flammable
surfaces, including the extensive wooden framework and
staging designed to encase the ammunition and secure it in
the hold. As one Coast Guard seaman remarked, “It was one
hot fire!”
During the early stages of the firefighting, two of these water
jet propelled 30-foot fireboats arrived at the El Estero, and began
pouring water into the ammo ship along with local fire trucks and
pier-side fire hoses. U.S. Coast Guard photo.
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During the early stages of the firefighting, two of these water jet
propelled 30-foot fireboats arrived at the El Estero, and began
pouring water into the ammo ship along with local fire trucks and
pier-side fire hoses. (U.S. Coast Guard photo)
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Pfister noticed that the fire's black smoke began to show
yellowish-white streaks indicating that water from the hoses,
fireboats and local fire trucks had begun to reach the fire's
source. But the danger of catastrophic explosion was far from over
and in fact had only just begun as the smoke returned to its oily
black consistency. On Stanley's recommendation, the Coast Guard
Commander of the Third District and New York's Captain of the Port,
Rear Adm. Stanley Parker, ordered El Estero scuttled. But it was too
late for that. The seacocks and overboard discharge valves used to
flood the ship were located in the engine room underneath the
intense blaze.
El Estero's bombs, explosives and ammunition
grew hotter by the minute. Oil fires must be fought with chemicals,
but the fire's smoke and flames were far too dense to allow the
application of chemicals to the source of the conflagration. All the
seamen could do was cool the ammunition with water, flood the ship's
holds as fast as possible and try to extinguish the fire later with
chemicals if water failed to work. McCausland had led firefighting
efforts inside the ship and suffered injuries, burns and smoke
inhalation after rescuing a man in the hold. He was evacuated to the
local hospital where he recovered for the next three weeks.
El Estero's deck cargo proved as dangerous as that stowed in the
holds. Anti-aircraft ammunition for the ship's deck guns was located
perilously close to the blistering decks. The Coast Guard's fire
fighters broke open the ammunition lockers and slid the hot
ammunition ready boxes down a greased plank to the pier below. In
addition, numerous drums of high-octane fuel sat stacked on the
ship's deck. But the men left the barrels on deck because El Estero
had to be towed away from the waterfront to prevent the pier, stored
ammunition and local fuel storage tanks from going up in smoke.
Stanley and tugboat skipper Ole Ericksen quickly examined harbor
charts and selected an anchorage for the ship in the Upper Harbor.
Once Coast Guard officials made the decision to move El Estero,
Stanley asked 20 volunteers to stay on board with him and Pfister to
fight the fire during the transit to the Upper Harbor. Far more men
volunteered than the number necessary, and many had to be ordered
off. A seaman about to be married volunteered to stay on board, but
the ranking boatswain's mate yelled, “You're getting married in a
few weeks. Now get the hell off!”
At this stage of the
firefighting effort, the chances of survival for those staying on
board El Estero seemed slim indeed, and the men that remained passed
their watches, wallets and personal effects to their departing
shipmates.
By 7:00 p.m., the seamen on board El Estero had
managed to secure a steel hawser to the ship's bow and the tugboats
began pulling her out into New York Harbor. Meanwhile, the Coast
Guardsmen on board the burning ship pushed the cooking fuel drums
off the deck. Fuel leaked from some of the ruptured barrels and
ignited the water's surface near the blazing freighter; but the fire
fighters had averted the threat of igniting a massive fuel explosion
on El Estero's top side. As the tugboats towed the burning vessel
into the harbor, El Estero belched black clouds that could be seen
for miles and an orange glow above the boiler room illuminated the
smoke. The authorities in New Jersey and New York warned residents
by radio and through local air raid wardens to prepare for an
explosion and prepared for the detonation.
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Illustration from the New York Daily News indicating the
potential blast radius had the cargo of the El Estero detonated. (U.S. Coast Guard photo)
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Eventually, the convoy of tugboats, fireboats and the El
Estero reached the target area and the Coast Guard crew
successfully anchored the vessel in 40 feet of water
half-a-mile west of the unmanned Robbins Reef Lighthouse.
Just past 9:00 p.m., El Estero filled with water and settled
to the bottom. The flooded vessel rumbled and belched smoke
and steam as she cooled in the cold water of New York
Harbor. Meanwhile, floating fuel drums exploded on the
water's surface and fires continued to burn on the ship's
exposed superstructure. By 9:45 p.m., New York Mayor
Fiorello La Guardia arrived by police launch to inspect the
freighter and reported that she was still burning. As Lt.
Cmdr. Pfister later described the fire, “It was touch and go
at all times.” But by 10:00 p.m., Rear Adm. Parker broadcast
by radio the all-clear announcement and by 11:30 p.m., the
Fire Fighter and John J. Harvey had finally extinguished the
remaining surface fires and returned to their piers.
The next morning, thousands of New Yorkers participated in
the annual Easter Day Parade, most not realizing how close
they had come to a complete destruction. A few months after
the fire, the Navy raised El Estero, towed her out to sea
and sank the ammunition laden hulk in deeper water. Had the
El Estero detonated and touched off nearby flammables and
ammunition, explosives experts believe that Manhattan's sky
scrapers could have suffered severe damage and as many as
one million residents would have been affected.
The
El Estero fire taught military and civilian authorities the
perils of loading live ammunition near a major metropolitan
area. Not long after averting the disaster, the Navy began
building a weapons depot on a section of rural waterfront
property near Sandy Hook, New Jersey. In December, the Navy
commissioned Naval Weapons Station Earle, named for former
naval ordnance bureau chief, Rear Adm. Ralph Earle, which
soon became a hub for the region's explosives loading
operations. The Coast Guard moved the Explosives Loading
Detail from Jersey City to Earle when operations began at
that facility.
In an unfortunate epilogue to this
story, disaster struck a year later at the Navy's weapons
depot at Port Chicago, California, 35 miles northeast of San
Francisco. The Navy had located this munitions facility in
an isolated area far away from the local population center;
however, it failed to implement proper oversight and safety
procedures at Port Chicago. In an effort to speed up
shipments of munitions to Pacific combat zones, Navy
personnel ignored Coast Guard safety guidelines and
by-passed the assistance of a Coast Guard Explosives Loading
Detail for loading operations. In June 1944, a mishap in the
hold of an ammunition ship touched off over 4,600 tons of
ammunition, atomizing the ship and a another ammo ship,
leveling the loading facility, killing over 300 Navy
personnel and seriously wounding 400 more in the area. While
not quite as powerful as the Halifax explosion, it was the
worst such disaster in U.S. Navy history.
Early in
the war, Coast Guard personnel serving in the New York area
became known rather derisively as “subway sailors” and
“bathtub sailors,” because many came from the greater New
York area. However, New Yorkers would come to recognize the
men that fought the El Estero fire as the heroes they truly
were. For his efforts, Lt. Cmdr. Stanley received the Legion
of Merit Medal and Pfister received the Navy & Marine Corps
Medal for his role in fighting the fire. The city of Bayonne
threw a parade and huge ceremony recognizing the Coast Guard
Ammunition Loading Detail and the city's firefighters, which
included speeches, radio broadcasts and the presentation of
specially struck medals to each member of the detail. In
addition, some of the detail's personnel received a letter
of citation from Parker. They were members of the long blue
line and rescued the city of New York from near destruction.
By William H. Thiesen, Atlantic Area Historian, USCG
Provided
through
Coast
Guard
Copyright 2016
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