The loss of the Chemang off Vigo

The loss of the Chemang off Vigo was a sudden wartime maritime disaster in which an explosion flooded the ship and forced its crew to beach her near the Spanish port. The crew escaped, but the vessel was sold where she lay, turning a dangerous passage into the end of the Chemang’s service under its existing ownership.

Danger on the Coastal Passage

The Chemang left without a convoy in the middle of a foggy night and followed the Spanish coast toward Finisterre. Suspicion and fear already shaped life aboard: when a deckhand came up from the forecastle smoking, the mate knocked him down and threatened to have him arrested as a German spy. After the skipper changed course to head south, the crew spotted a periscope astern. The skipper took the wheel and ordered full power, while the gun crew fired; the periscope disappeared.

A couple of hours later, the ship overtook a small ketch, which the crew took to be a Spanish fishing boat heading toward Vigo. As the Chemang crossed its wake, an impact shook the ship and sent a column of water over the bridge. The gunners believed the ketch had dropped a mine and fired at it, but the heavy seas made their shots miss. The ketch disappeared behind the island at the entrance to Vigo’s roadstead. The account leaves the suspected connection unconfirmed: the crew’s belief identifies a possible cause, not a proven one.

Flooding and Abandonment of the Passage

The initial damage appeared limited. Only the first compartment had flooded, and the crew was on deck amidships in life preservers rather than trapped in the forecastle. The Chemang settled slightly by the bow but continued toward Vigo at reduced speed. The apparent containment did not last: by the time she reached the channel opposite the town, water was gaining on the pumps in the second compartment, and the engine room had flooded to a depth of four feet.

With the pumps unable to keep pace, the crew had to beach the ship on banks of hard sand to the right of Vigo. The episode’s decisive turn is from a damaged vessel that can still crawl toward port to one that can no longer remain afloat in the channel. The ship was not described as sinking outright; instead, beaching brought the immediate danger to an end while leaving the Chemang stranded and out of service.

The Crew Ashore and the Ship’s Transfer

Afterward, the crew stood outside the consul’s office with their bundles, waiting for him to find them somewhere to stay. The Spanish consul spoke limited English but treated them well. The local Liberal Party invited the officers and crew to a bullfight, where spectators divided their cheers between the Allies and Maura. At a banquet afterward, pro-Allied speakers made speeches the Americans could not understand, and the crew answered with songs. The convivial welcome followed the ordeal without undoing its material consequence.

The skipper received a cable directing him to turn the Chemang over to agents of Gomez and Ca., who had bought the vessel as she stood and were changing her registry. The damaged ship’s fate was therefore not recorded as a final sinking: her loss in this episode was the loss of her former owners’ ship and service, as she passed to new buyers after being beached. Joe Williams and Glen Hardwick shared a hotel room that night, closing the sequence with dry banter about the war rather than a report of further casualties.