Our Stories - Jan 23 2011

Our Stories - Jan 23 2011

 

After 93 years, fate of ship still mystifies

 

IN A STORAGE ROOM OF THE MARINERS’ MUSEUM in Newport News is a glimpse of an unfathomable mystery. A small, humble chest, wooden, dark green, splotched with red and bearing a stenciled identity, “U.S.S. CYCLOPS, MISC. SPARES … COAL CONVEYOR MOTORS,” is empty now, save for the musty smell of the wood.

And maybe a hint of tragedy.

The Cyclops, born a collier at a shipyard in Philadelphia in 1910, steamed to Norfolk to join the Navy’s Auxiliary Service to refuel ships of the Atlantic Fleet. The massive vessel – 542 feet long by 65 wide – was a workhorse of the fleet, servicing ships from Newport, R.I., to the Caribbean. There was a stint in the Baltic in 1911 and, during troubled conditions in Mexico in 1914, valiant service evacuating refugees.

But there was something odd about the Cyclops, specifically its skipper, Lt. Cmdr. George W. Worley, who was known as colorful and tyrannical. According to ship’s lore, he might cavort about in long-johns and derby hat one day and chase a fellow officer with a pistol the next. His reputation for cruelty rivaling that of HMS Bounty’s William Bligh, he berated and cursed insubordinates for trivial offenses.

And then there was this: He was born Johann Frederick Wichmann in Hanover, Germany, and changed his name after jumping ship in San Francisco in 1878. This would come to light after what became one of the greatest mysteries in naval history.

In 1918, the Cyclops – now a commissioned Navy ship and Worley a full commander – departed Norfolk in early February for Rio de Janeiro. Stopping in Bahia, Brazil, and taking on manganese ore, which was used in weapons-making, it headed back toward Hampton Roads, with a brief stop in Barbados on March 3.

And was never seen or heard from again.

With the Cyclops due in port no later than March 13, the Navy was reported several days later to express “extreme anxiety” over its fate and that of more than 300 passengers and crew. A massive search and wireless calls up and down its route found not a shred of wreckage, not a radioed answer.

The disappearance of the Cyclops was the gravest noncombat loss of a Navy ship. And one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the deep.

“She really just literally got swallowed by the sea,” said Marc Nucup, associate curator at the museum.

There have been dozens of theories, among the most intriguing swirling about Worley’s alleged German sympathies, as well as those of one of his passengers, Alfred Gottschalk, U.S. consul-general in Rio. Did the two conspire to hand the ship over to the Germans? Another piece of the puzzle is that Worley, who lived in Norfolk with his wife and daughter, sold his house just before departing – as though planning never to return.

Or did a German U-boat sink the Cyclops, with all hands going to the bottom? The problem with these theories is that a search of German admiralty records didn’t offer a clue.

Did the ship break apart in a storm? The problem here is that there were no distress signals and no debris.

The most likely scenario revolves about the fact that the Cyclops, with 10,000 tons of manganese ore on board, was severely overloaded. It’s possible that a cargo shift increased the ship’s list just enough to make it vulnerable to a rogue wave, which could cause it to suddenly turn turtle and sink before a distress call could be made or a lifeboat launched. Then, too, the Cyclops was thought to have a structural weakness amidships that might have caused it to break in two. This theory gained credence after two sister ships sank during World War II.

But no distress calls? No debris? No sunken remains?

The Mariners’ Museum has a few artifacts. In addition to contemporary news accounts, the museum library has a postcard showing the Cyclops berthed at a pier, and an engraved invitation to a reception on another ship.

Then there’s the wooden chest. It was apparently taken home by one of the crew during a stay in port and, years later, found in a basement and turned over to the museum.

Even though it has no connection to the ship’s sad fate, there’s a weird feeling about it. Maybe because it’s just about the only tangible proof that the Cyclops even existed.

 

 

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE MARINERS’ MUSEUM A wooden chest at The Mariners’ Museum in Newport News has sparse information about the Cyclops, a 19,360-ton collier that was built in 1910, commissioned for service in 1917, and last seen or heard from in 1918.

 

The Cyclops was photographed in October 1911 by the New York Navy Yard, possibly while it was anchored in the Hudson River off New York City.

Paul Clancy, paulclancy@msn.com

To read past columns and to access Paul's archives, please visit:

www.paulclancystories.com

Paul Clancy, a former staff writer for The Pilot, is the author of “Ironclad: The Epic Battle, Calamitous Loss, and Historic Recovery of the USS Monitor,” “Historic Hampton Roads: Where America Began” and “Hampton Roads Chronicles: History From the Birthplace of America.”

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