As Christmas Eve 1951 approached, the 40-person crew and the ten civilian passengers
on board the SS Flying Enterprise cargo freighter were looking forward
to celebrating the holiday inside the ship.
The Flying Enterprise was on a trek from Germany to the United States, carrying tonnes of different
materials. However, in the early hours of December 25, the freighter encountered one
of the largest Atlantic storms of the century while crossing through the English channel.
The storm only worsened as the days went by, and as 40-foot-tall waves jerked the ship around,
the crew suddenly heard gunshot-like sounds as the water caused large cracks in the ship's hull.
Despite the captain's efforts, his ship was sinking, and so was his precious cargo. The
captain vehemently refused to leave the ship, and became something of a celebrity during those days.
Still, modern historians claim there was more to this stubbornness than mere naval duty, and that
the ship might have been carrying something far more precious than initially thought…
The Perfect Storm
On December 21, 1951, under the command of Henrik Kurt Carlsen, a Danish-born sea captain,
the SS Flying Enterprise general cargo vessel left Hamburg, Germany, bound for the United States.
Among her load were thousands of tons of pig iron, coffee beans, rags, peat moss, and naphthalene,
as well as other heavy cargo such as twelve Volkswagen cars, antiques, and typewriters.
In addition to her 40-person crew, the ship also carried ten civilian passengers.
On Christmas Eve, as the vessel crossed the Western Approaches of the English Channel,
the busiest shipping area in the world, she encountered a large storm.
By Christmas Day, the cyclone became the most powerful Atlantic storm in almost half a century.
The ship held steady for a few days, but during the early hours of December 27,
with the winds approaching hurricane force, the captain decided that the only
option was to run on limited power and hopefully ride out the storm.
As such, Carlsen ordered the ship to heave to with
the bow facing into the wind and the 40-foot tall waves.
However, on the dawn of December 27, everyone on board woke up to several loud bangs that
sounded like gunshots. Soon, Carlsen received unfortunate news from the ship's engineer:
the Flying Enterprise had two cracks, each about half an inch wide.
While the crew used the best of their abilities to fill in the cracks
with concrete and other materials while being battered around by the waves,
the following morning only brought more distress.
According to official documents: [QUOTE] "At about 11:30 on the morning of the 28 the vessel was hit
broadside by another high wave which rolled the vessel between 50-70 degrees to port,
shifting the cargo and causing the vessel to return to a permanent list of about 25 degrees."
As the furniture, cars, coffee beans, pig iron, and other heavy cargo shifted
and ripped even more holes in the keel, Captain Carlsen finally sent out an SOS on December 28.
By then, the SS Flying Enterprise was listing 45 degrees to port.
Rescue
While two merchant vessels initially responded to the distress signal,
neither was able to get close enough to rescue the crew and passengers.
But the rescue of the SS Flying Enterprise was only just beginning, and her 37-year-old
Danish-American skipper would refuse to be separated from his vessel, no matter what.
Out of all the many ships that responded to the SOS call,
British-flagged MV Sherborne was the first to arrive on the morning of December 29.
While Carlsen was unsure of leaving his crew and passengers at the hands of a British ship,
he ordered everyone to abandon the boat once the massive hull started to list.
However, the Enterprise was listing so badly that the crew could not launch the lifeboats,
and jumping into the cold Atlantic Ocean became the only way to get off the doomed vessel.
Each passenger paired up with a crew member, then jumped together and swam to the lifeboats.
While most were able to haul aboard to safety, one passenger did not make it to the rescue ships.
Firmly believing that the SS Flying Enterprise could still be salvaged,
Captain Carlsen refused to abandon her and stayed inside to wait for a tugboat.
Sure enough, when the ship owners learned of her structural damage in the middle of the
English channel, they chartered a salvage company in England to tow her to port.
While Carlsen had no food nor heat aboard the ship,
he was in constant radio contact with the USS John W Weeks destroyer, standing close by.
The Captain's refusal to abandon his beloved ship inspired hundreds of stories in newspapers all
over the globe. Soon, news media teams were flying over the English Channel
to record footage of the SS Flying Enterprise and her intrepid captain.
Luckily, Captain Carlsen's crew was able to fire a line onto the ship to transfer food and coffee.
Tugboat
On January 4, 1952, the tugboat Turmoil arrived on the scene of the accident.
However, when it proved impossible for Carlsen to attach the heavy towing cable by himself,
Turmoil's first officer Kenneth Dancy decided to help.
Dancy, just as spirited and brave as Carlsen,
maneuvered his tug boat close to the Flying Enterprise's stern,
and Dancy jumped. This example of masterful seamanship became known as ‘Dancy's leap.’
The following day, Carlsen and Dancy finally managed to secure a tow line,
and the slow process of pulling the freighter back to port began.
For over five days, the world watched as the duo threaded the waters towards dry land.
While the major storm that initially crippled the freighter had mostly subsided by then,
it intensified on January 8 as the tow team approached the English coast,
putting extra strain on the towing cable.
Two days later, only 45 miles from Falmouth port,
heavy seas snapped the cable, and the duo was unable to repair it or re-secure another tow line.
Listing at 90 degrees, endlessly taking water down the stack, and with no time to lose,
both Dancy and Carlsen walked along her horizontal funnel and jumped into the ocean.
After being taken aboard Turmoil, the duo then witnessed the Flying
Enterprise finally sink into the ocean. They were only 38 miles from dry land.
Secret Cargo
Back in Falmouth Port in England,
the harbor was decked in flags and filled with people waiting to celebrate
the arrival of the crippled freighter. While the crowds were sad about the sinking, the locals
still received Kurt Carlsen and Kenneth Dancy with open arms and gave them a hero's welcome.
Carlsen eventually became a minor celebrity in the United States, leading a ticker-tape parade
in New York and receiving several medals for his incessant bravery.
And while several Hollywood studios offered the captain big money for a
first-hand account of his journey through the English channels,
Carlsen eventually decided to go back to the ocean as master of the SS Flying Enterprise II.
Meanwhile, Dancy was also welcomed back to his hometown,
with 20,000 locals cheering near his house. And the brave Englishman
also rejected several lucrative opportunities for promotional commercials.
Still, Captain Carlsen, who captured the imagination and hearts of people
around the globe during his two-week ordeal,
may have had an ulterior motive for his relentless devotion to his ship.
According to independent journalist Jeanne Toomey, who once interviewed the captain, the
Flying Enterprise may have been carrying a large quantity of Zirconium, which would be used in the
ultra-secret nuclear submarine USS Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered submarine.
Had the ship not been lost, many believe the Zirconium would have
been used to construct the Nautilus's nuclear reactor.
These speculations were discussed in the 2002 documentary ‘The Mystery of Flying Enterprise.’
According to the investigation, the SS Flying Enterprise was on her way
to deliver the Zirconium to New England when Mother Nature claimed the ship for herself.
Still, such information about the ship’s cargo has remained confidential,
and no details are available from any branch of the government.
In the interview with Bekker, Carlsen himself confirmed that
the ship had a Zirconium cargo acquired via the German nuclear energy project.
Beneath the surface of charm and naval devotion, it is believed that Captain Carlsen was determined
to make sure that if his ship disappeared beneath the waves, so would all his top-secret cargo.
Legacy
To this day, the wreckage site of the SS Flying Enterprise lies 276 feet deep
in the western approaches of the English Channel.
A United States Coast Guard inquiry about the incident found that the damage, abandonment,
and subsequent loss of the vessel were caused by circumstances out of anyone's control.
The research also found that the SS Flying Enterprise's structural damage
and the cracks across the weather deck were caused by a rogue wave.
Still, according to the inquiry, some of the cargo, namely the pig iron, was stacked in
a pyramid shape and not leveled, which could have also contributed to the significant loss.
In the early 2000s, the Danish expedition diving team behind the documentary
did a four-day diving exploration of the underwater wreckage,
braving the rough seas in the English channel to look for the remains of the sunken freighter.
While exploring, the team discovered something strange:
a man-made hole cut into the vessel's hull where the Zirconium may have been stored…
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