Marine Sulphur Queen News & Commentary
The first news our family received concerning the loss of the Marine Sulphur Queen was via the above telegram dated 8 Feb. 1963.Here are some copies of and references to news articles and commentary regarding the Marine Sulphur Queen, a ship which vanished along with its cargo and crew in the area known as the Bermuda Triangle. I am seeking any other news articles and references about the Marine Sulphur Queen.
This is the headline from a 21 Feb. 1963 edition of Pilot, a publication of The National Maritime Union. If you click on the headline it will expand a little more in size for easier viewing. This copy is a contribution from R. L. Procter, nephew of Adam Martin, Jr., one of the lost crew men. Other news headlines, captions, and articles are being placed in an online photo album.
The most recent article regarding the Marine Sulphur Queen was in the Sept. 13, 2000 edition of The Beaumont Enterprise, in the Guest Column of writer and historian W. T. Block. Below is a copy of most of that article:
Disappearing Sulphur Ship Still Haunts NEDERLAND -- The sulphur tanker Marine Sulphur Queen of Beaumont disappeared with all hands in the Bermuda Triangle 37 years ago, and its loss is still a mystery today.
After World War II, the Texas Gulf Sulphur Co. built a large steam plant outside the south Beaumont city limit near Martin Luther King Parkway and Spindletop Drive, with intent to use the Frasch process to pump sulphur out of the old Spindletop salt dome. It also built its sulphur docks on the Neches River, east of the railroad tracks.
In 1960 the company bought the old T-2 tanker, the former Esso New Haven, built in Chester, Penn., in 1944, and had it converted into a molten sulphur tanker at Sparrow Point, Md. Renamed Marine Sulphur Queen, the tanker used steam to keep sulphur melted in its tanks at 255 degrees, which enabled the tanker to load and unload its cargo easily. The tanker was operated by the Marine Transport Lines.
During the next two years, the tanker made about 50 round trips between Beaumont and Norfolk, Va. During those years, the ship experienced two unloading accidents when sulphur overflowed into pump houses Nos. 1 and 3, with some sulphur drying in the tank insulation. There had even been some localized fires in the pump houses, but neither accident was deemed serious enough to take the ship out of service.
The Marine Sulphur Queen left Beaumont on its last voyage at 8 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 2, 1963, the cargo in the 524-foot tanker weighing 15,260 tons. The last radio contact with the tanker occurred at 1:25 EST on Feb. 4. The ship's position at that time was estimated at 25.45 degrees north by 86 degrees west, as the ship neared the Florida keys.
No radio contact was made with the ship after that, but since it was known the tanker was battling high seas and winds, it was thought at first that she was running 24 hours behind schedule. On Feb. 8, a day after the ship was due at Norfolk, news of its possible loss was released, and a massive search was launched from the Florida Keys to the North Carolina coast. On Feb. 20th a life preserver and a fog horn from the ship were found floating near Key West, and other debris had washed up on the Florida beaches.
A similar sulphur tanker broke in half in 1960, with the loss of seven lives, but the ship stayed afloat long enough for the others to escape. It appeared that the Beaumont ship had blown up and sunk quickly from a massive explosion of unknown origin.
A total of 39 crewmen were killed aboard the Marine Sulphur Queen, including Capt. J.V. Fanning, H.P. Hall, F.J.Cunningham, L.B. Clausen, E.W. Schneeberger, and J.C.Ardoin - all of Beaumont. N.E. Devine, Jas. Phillips, Alex Valdez, C. Smith and W. Pleasant were all from Port Arthur or Groves. The remainder were from other Gulf or East Coast ports.
The loss of the Marine Sulphur Queen resulted in several million dollars in lawsuits, which lingered in the Beaumont courts as late as 1972. A Coast Guard inquiry indicated that the ill-fated ship was being operated in an unsafe condition....
An interesting commentary was found on the unlikely Applied Derivatives Trading site:
March '97 Rearview
The Bermuda Triangle Mystery...It may come as some surprise to readers to discover that the Editor does actually have the odd nanosecond of free time in between compiling ADT, trading and so forth... Certainly, this news will probably appal all the other much more diligent employees of the ADT organisation. Anyway, there I am, innocently enjoying a microcosmically spasmodic moment of relaxation and just when I least expect it, suddenly a reference to derivatives rears its ugly head.
Take for example my recent bedtime read. It's an dog-eared paperback from 1975, entitled "The Bermuda Triangle" and written by Charles Berlitz, coincidentally the grandson of the man behind the language schools. Anyway, short of creating a futures contract related to the number of disappearances (apparently "Stutz" did it years ago), nothing could have been further from my mind when suddenly the story of the loss of "The Marine Sulphur Queen" appeared in the text.
Apparently this 425 foot freighter with a crew of 39, was carrying 15,000 long tons of molten sulphur when it disappeared on or about February 2nd, 1963. The text says quite distinctly "on or about" as the coastguards were unaware of the ship's disappearance until they were alerted by an unlikely source. Indeed, the ship's owners were equally in the dark about this sinking until, er, a kindly futures broker notified them. A futures broker? Yip, a futures broker.
Apparently one of the sailors had been speculating in wheat futures and the brokerage was unable to contact him with details of his fill. As author Berlitz, comments "One of the seamen on the Marine Sulphur Queen had been speculating... in wheat futures, a pastime that normally requires close contact with one's broker, and had placed a "buy" order before the ship left port. The brokerage house had executed the order and had cabled him confirmation. When no response was received, the brokerage house informed the ship's owners that they could not reach the vessel."
I've just got to a chapter entitled "The Surprises of Prehistory" in the same volume. Now I'm concerned with what I'll find here. Swaps dealers in Ancient Athens? Extra-terrestrials dealing exotic options? ....
Here is the text from Newsweek, 4 March 1963, pp. 29-30:
TRAGEDIES:
Sulphur Queen's EndOn the night of Feb. 2, its steamheated tanks laden with molten sulphur, the Marine Sulphur Queen nosed out into the Gulf on a routine run from Beaumont, Texas, to Norfolk, Va. Next night, 200 miles off Key West, a personal message was radioed ashore: Seaman Willie Manuel put in a buy order for 5,000 bushels of May wheat with his Tampa broker. And that was the last murmur from the old converted World War 11 tanker and its crew of 39.
Was it hijacked? Had it drifted into Cuban waters? It had certainly run into some weather -- 35-knot winds and 14-foot waves -- but why was there no distress message? Had it exploded? The cargo sounded fearful enough -- 15,000 tons of brimstone, simmering at 275 degrees -- but, said the owner, Marine Transport Lines, sulphur is at its tamest in that state: fire danger was minimal.
From Yucatan to New York, Navy and Coast Guard planes searched the seas. After a week, without finding so much as a stick, the searchers gave up, and the 7,240-ton Sulphur Queen was written off as one more mystery of the deep. A board of inquiry went to work. The wives of five crewmen filed a $2.5 million damage suit.
Then last week 14 miles southeast of Key West, a Navy torpedo retriever boat came on a 4-mile oil slick and found bobbing in it a fog megaphone and several lifejackets, a man's shirt banging to one. All the jackets bore the stencil "Sulphur Queen."
Theories abounded. Buffeted by seas, the 524-foot ship broke in half, as three other T-2 tankers have done in the past eleven years. Or a great wave capsized it. Or leaking sulphur gas exploded, a stray mine struck, or the tanker was sabotaged. All agreed it must have been something catastrophic.
"But I keep coming back to that question," said Second Mate David Fike, who was vacationing and missed the voyage. "Why was there no radio message? Ships just don't go down that fast."
Ships do, though, and the Sulphur Queen must have been one of them.
[Note: Luren E. Dickinson, Director of Libraries of the Reading Public Library, provided the Newsweek article text.]
The New York Times ran the following news items: 12 February 1963 (p. 3, col. 6): Search for Tanker is Expanded in Vain
16 February 1963 (p. 4, col. 3): Company Abandons Hope of Finding Missing Ship
19 Feb. 1963 (p. 13, col. 2): $2,500,000 Sulphur Queen Suit
21 Feb. 1963 (p. 4, col. 7): Two Life Jackets Found From Tanker Lost Feb. 2.
23 May 1963 (p. 74, col. 6): Inquiry on Lost Ship Told of Explosives
28 May 1963 (p. 74, col. 5): Board Can't Explain Sulphur Ship's Loss
Here is a copy of a document from Lloyd's: Lloyd's Register of Shipping, dated 2 May 1969.
This is an interesting reference to William Shakespeare's "The Tempest":
the bermuda triangle - more ships and aircraft have vanished without a trace in the waters between miami, bermuda, and puerto rico than anywhere else of equal area. the phenomenon has been extensively studied but it remains a mystery. among its victims are the ship "marine sulphur queen" and a squadron of tbm avengers, (naval historical center) (btw: in the 16th century the sea in this triangle was thought to be evil and bermuda was called devil's island. shakespeare's "tempest" is about the bermuda triangle.)
EDITORIAL / Anti-Hampton Ad an Odd Example of Courtesy ( Newsday )
Things just seem to go "poof" and vanish in the Bermuda Triangle, so-called because two of its sides just happen to intersect at the Bermuda archipeligo.
In 1945, an entire squadron of TBM Avengers disappeard there, and the USS Cyclops went down without a trace and so did the cargo ship Marine Sulphur Queen. The area is so notorious that it is sometimes called "the devil's triangle," but proximity to such a mysterious and exciting area is never mentioned in Bermuda tourism ads.
Instead, a June 4 newspaper ad was headlined: "Why Four Days in Bermuda Are Better Than Four Days in the Hamptons." The copywriter noted that in Bermuda "you don't share a house with 30 people you only marginally like." The copy also noted that "everyone in Bermuda is courteous and friendly," while "everyone in the Hamptons is from New York." Now that's a tad snide, but tougher libels are recited daily in New York kindergartens. So Suffolk County Executive Robert Gaffney and Michael Hollander, the executive director of the Long Island Convention and Visitors Bureau, should come down off the ceiling, where have they been since demanding an apology from the Bermuda Tourism Commission.
Who can argue that on a Friday night in summer it is probably faster to fly to Bermuda than to drive to the Hamptons? So, as the ad says, "you can be sunning yourself on a beach instead of sitting in traffic on the LIE." You certainly can ... if the airline doesn't bump you, and if the plane doesn't spend an hour waiting for take-off and if your luggage doesn't get lost with your bathing suit inside. Besides, the Bermuda ad doesn't mention anything about the trip home. Tourists leaving the Hamptons don't have to pay a departure tax. But they have to pay their way out of Bermuda, $20 by air or $60 by ship. That's gracious. It's called speeding the parting guest.
Author not available, Newsday, 06-14-1999, pp A24.
Here are links to my other pages concerning the Marine Sulphur Queen. My other pages
- Bermuda Triangle & Marine Sulphur Queen
- Crew of Marine Sulphur Queen
- Summary of Findings of Coast Guard's Marine Board of Investigations
- U. S. Coast Guard Report
