SS Helena Modjeska
From Our Contribution
 The SS Helena Modjeska is shown off the coast of Kent in England after breaking in two during a heavy storm - photo - US National Archives | |
 Tugs attempting to free Helena Modjeska | |
| History | |
|---|---|
| Name | SS Helena Modjeska |
| Owner | US Maritime Commission - War Shipping Administration |
| Builder | Delta Shipbuilding Co., New Orleans |
| Launched | 6 Nov 1944 |
| Completed | November 1944 |
| In service | late 1944 |
| Out of service | 12 Sep 1946 |
| Fate | wrecked on Goodwin Sands 1946 and scrapped 1947 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | Liberty cargo EC2-S-C1 |
| Tonnage | 7,176 tons |
| Length | 128.9 m |
| Beam | 17.4 m |
| Depth | 10.6 m |
| Propulsion | 2 oil fired boilers, single screw |
| Speed | 11 knots (20.4 kmh) |
Remarks
Commissioned on Nov. 6, 1944, as the SS Helena Modjeska, with a civilian crew of about 70 and a 20-man naval armed guard in charge of its deck guns and anti-aircraft batteries, she plied the world’s oceans during and following the end of WW II, delivering and receiving troops and heavy cargoes such as tanks, trucks, aircraft and railroad stock. She saw service in the Pacific and Far East
On 16 Nov 1946, 13 months after the end of WW II, SS Helena Modjeska’s life was to end ingloriously less than two years after its launching and commissioning. Carrying a full cargo of Army trucks and tanks lashed to her deck and stored in the hold, the ship struck an underwater reef on the treacherous Goodwin Sands off England’s Kent coast during a heavy storm and became dead in the water, listing badly. A dozen German prisoners who had escaped from a prisoner of war camp in England and had stowed away in the Helena Modjeska’s hold managed to escape during the storm and they were rounded up two days after the ship broke in two.
Soon, the ship's two sections floated away from one another. The crew members on each section were rescued by nearby fishing boats, with the Captain later dying of a heart attack in his hotel room. Both sections of SS Helena Modjeska were towed to port and broken up for scrap.