Name SS Stag Hound Port of registry New York Completed September 1942 Length 138 m | Owner United States Lines Yard number 204 Launched 18 October 1941 | |
Builder Sun Shipbuilding
Chester, Pennsylvania | ||
MS Stag Hound was a Type C2-SU-R refrigerated diesel motor powered cargo ship built by Sun Shipbuilding for United States Lines. She was sunk by Italian submarine Barbarigo on 3 March 1943. All hands were rescued by an Argentine ship.
Career
Stag Hound was laid down at Sun Shipbuilding of Chester, Pennsylvania. Constructed under a United States Maritime Commission contract (MC hull number 116) on behalf of United States Lines of New York, she was launched on 18 October 1941. After Stag Hound's September 1942 completion, she was registered at New York and armed with one 5-inch (130 mm) and one 3-inch (76 mm) deck gun and six machine guns, and took on fourteen Naval Armed Guardsmen to man the guns.
On 28 February 1943, Stag Hound departed New York for Rio de Janeiro with a 5,800-long-ton (5,893.072 t) cargo that included dynamite, trucks, gas, and steel. At 19:15 on 3 March, near position 16°44′S 36°33′W, Stag Hound was struck by two torpedoes launched by Italian submarine Barbarigo. The torpedoes destroyed the steering gear and the ship's antenna, and the ship's master, Harold T. McCaw, ordered the fatally damaged vessel abandoned. The ship's 10 officers (including McCaw), 49 men, and 25 Naval Armed Guardsmen boarded two lifeboats and one life raft ten minutes after the attack. Barbarigo launched a coup de grâce that hit the still-floating ship, causing her to sink stern-first at 19:50, 35 minutes after the initial attack. After 25 hours in the water, all hands were rescued by the Argentine steamer SS Rio Colorado and were landed at Rio de Janeiro on 8 March.