Hi, I'm the History Guy. I have a degree in history and I love history and if you
love history too this is the channel for you. The United States Merchant Marine has been called “The
Forgotten Service” it's not even really recognized as a military service, and yet in time of war they
provide critical functions in war zones taking incredible risks. During the Second World War
the Merchant Marine operated 4,200 merchant ships which were bringing necessary supply to soldiers
in all theatres of operation in the middle of combat zones, and they took exceptional risks.
Their merchant vessels were lightly armed and no match for the warships, submarines and aircraft
that we're trying to destroy them. In the Second World War as many as 9,000 merchant mariners
lost their lives as a result of war wounds, and by some estimates, they had the highest proportional
casualty rate of all of the military services. And there's not a greater example of the risks that
the merchant mariners took than the extraordinary story of what happened to the SS Stephen Hopkins,
it is a story that deserves to be remembered.
The SS Stephen Hopkins was one of the first Liberty ships, those are mass-produced merchant vessels that the United States made in the Second World
War, to come off the line. Her keel was laid down less than a month after Pearl Harbor and she was
at sea by May of 1942. Her 2,500 horsepower engines could give her a cruising speed of 10 and a half
knots and an all-out speed of 12 and a half knots, carrying as much as 11,000 tons of cargo. Liberty
ships were lightly armed, mostly to protect them against aircraft, the Stephen Hopkins had two 37
millimeter cannons in her bow and a larger 4-inch naval rifle in her stern. She had a crew of 41
officers and men, and a naval armed guard detachment, naval reservists who were assigned to
operate the guns of 14 enlisted and one officer. She was captained by 39 year-old Paul Buck,
a veteran Merchant Marine skipper. The Stephen Hopkins transported cargo from San Francisco to
New Zealand and then to Australia and finally offloaded the last of her cargo in Cape Town's
South Africa. She left Cape Town on September 19th 1942 planning to cross the Atlantic Ocean
to South America. Sunday the 27th was a quiet and normal day except for a small squall that reduced
visibility. Ford Stilson, the Chief Stewart, was in his cabin creating the mess menu for the next
day when he heard the unmistakable sound of a shell piercing the ship's superstructure. The
Stephen Hopkins was under attack. The general alarm sounded and the crews rushed to battle
station, barely through the fog they could see two ships, the smaller which was about their size,
and was firing at them. The ship that was firing at the Stephen Hopkins was The Stier, a German
commerce Raider an auxiliary Cruiser known only to the Allies as, Rader J. Auxiliary cruisers were
heavily armed converted merchant ships. They were designed to appear as a neutrally flagged merchant
vessel in order to get close to allied shipping, although that day the squall meant that there was
no need for guile. The Hopkins stumbled upon the Stier while it was being resupplied by its tender,
the ship Tannenfels, which was larger but unarmed. The Stier was roughly the size of
the Stephen Hopkins but it was far better armed. It had a battery of six 5.9 inch naval guns,
an additional 75 millimeter gun, a 37 millimeter gun, four 20 millimeter cannons, multiple machine
guns, two torpedo tubes and two navy float planes. Her crew of 324 naval personnel was commanded by
Captain Horst Gerlach, and the Stier had already sunk three allied merchant vessels in her current
cruise, and now the Stephen Hopkins had fallen under her guns. The crew of the Stephen Hopkins
ran to their guns. Although they were wildly outgunned, their guns were perfectly capable of
damaging the German Raider. Captain Buck steered the ship to make it as small a target as possible
and to give the best arc of fire to his largest gun, the 4-inch naval rifle that was on the stern.
The officer in charge of the naval armed guard detachment was grievously wounded but he continued
on deck directing fire. As members of the armed guard detachment were killed, merchant mariners
jumped in to man the guns, continuing to keep up fire on the German Raider. Suddenly there was a
large explosion amid ships, a German shell had pierced the main boiler and killed the engines.
Captain Buck knew that he couldn't steer the ship anymore and that there was nothing more they could
do, so he blew the whistle to abandon ship. Eighteen year-old Cadet Engineer, Edwin Joseph O'Hara, was
leaving the destroyed engine room when he heard that abandoned ship whistle, but when he got on
deck he found the 4-inch naval gun unmanned, its crew dead. He had never fired the gun before,
but he had seen the operation during drills and he knew what to do. Searching around he found a shell
in one of the ready boxes, lifted the 90 pound shell, threw it into the breach and pulled the
lanyard. The sound of the explosion nearly knocked him off his feet but he scored a direct hit on the
Stier. He found four more rounds, fired four more shots, all four scored hits before an explosion
nearby killed him. On board the Stier, Captain Gerlach was in shock, he had taken on what he
thought was a lightly armed merchant vessel, it should have been an easy fight, but the Steven
Hopkins had scored 35 direct hits with her 4-inch gun and the Stier was in ruins. Its steering gear
was blown away, its engines were disabled, it was a fire and it was sinking. Reluctantly Gerlach
gave the order to scuttle the ship, put charges in the magazine and abandon ship they evacuated to
the Tannenfels. The explosion would sink the Stier an hour ahead of the stricken Steven Hopkins. When
he gave his after-action report Gerlach insisted that he must have run into a heavily armed
cruiser. In their heroic defense, taking with them the much more powerful Stier, the Liberty
Ship SS Stephen Hopkins became the only U.S. surface ship of the Second World War to take down a German
surface ship in combat. The cost was high, only 19 members of the crew of Stephen Hopkins made it to
a lifeboat and for the more seriously wounded ones would not survive, but 15 did survive 31 days in
the lifeboat before arriving safely on the shores of Brazil. The crew of the Stephen Hopkins was
given the choice to surrender or to fight, and they decided to fight, for most of them to the
death. But it wasn't an idle sacrifice. In taking down the heavily armed German commerce Raider,
they had saved the lives of their fellow merchant mariners who would have been its victims. Kenneth
Willard, the commander of the naval armed guard detachment who stayed his post literally until
death, was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross. Captain Buck and four other members of his crew
were given the Merchant Marine Distinguished Service Award, the highest award for valor in
the Merchant Marine. For Captain Buck and two of the members, that was awarded posthumously.
The entire crew was given the Gallant Ship award. But the crew of the Stephen Hopkins did not fight
to get medals. They fought because they were as committed to the cause as any other member, of any
other services. And it is because of them, and the sacrifice of the nine thousand merchant mariners
who were casualties of the Second World War, that their service should never.. be forgotten.
I'm the History Guy. I hope you enjoyed this edition of my series, five minutes of history, short snippets of
forgotten history five to ten minutes long. If you did enjoy it, then please go ahead and click that
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