Superman to the rescue!
Some 85 years ago this week, on 16 January 1941, the fine Cammell Laird-built Pacific Steam Navigation Company’s SS Oropesa (14,075 GRT) was torpedoed in the Atlantic Ocean southeast of Rockall in the Western Approaches by the Type VIIC U-boat U-96 (Kptlt. Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock).
Hit by the first torpedo at 03:56, Lehmann-Willenbrock stuck around and pumped a second G7a into her a few minutes later, which missed, then two further fish by 05:59, sending the steamer to the bottom with the loss of 106 of the 249 people on board. Those who rode her to Davy Jones included Oropesa’s The Master, Harry Croft, 98 crewmen, a DEMS gunner, and six passengers.
Rushing to the scene came the Admiralty W-class destroyer HMS Westcott (D47) and two rescue tugs, HMRT Tenacity and Superman. They plucked 109 waterlogged crew, one DEMS gunner, and 33 passengers from the water and landed them at Liverpool.
HMRT Superman (W89)
Built in 1933 by Cochrane & Sons Ltd., Selby for United Towing Co. Ltd., Hull, Superman was a little fella, just 120 feet overall length, 27 of beam, and 14 of depth. Displacing 359 grt, she ran a single 900ihp 3cylTE steam engine crafted by C D Holmes Ltd., Hull.
Requisitioned for Admiralty service on 1 November 1939, she was given pennant W89, call sign GWFJ, broke out a White Ensign, and was armed with a 12-pounder gun and 4 machine guns left over from the Great War. Two .50 caliber Vickers guns would later augment this battery.
Initially based in Grimsby, HMRT Superman was later used as an ocean rescue tug, pulling the Emmy (Greek, 3895 GRT, built 1914) free from a grounding in the Irish Sea in January 1940. In August 1940, she rushed to the aid of Convoy HX-66A, which lost the freighters Mill Hill, Chelsea, and Norne to U-32 (Hans Jenisch).
By 1944, Superman was selected as a Mulberry tug and notably towed Whale unit S21 to Mulberry A just days after the Normandy landings and Phoenix caisson units to others.
Based at Pembroke Dock at the end of the war, she was returned to her owner on 14 December 1945 and sailed commercially for another two decades.
Superman was scrapped at Queensborough, Kent, in 1964.
The RFA would later acquire its own Superman in 1953, a sturdy 180-foot fleet tug built at Alexander Hall & Co., Aberdeen. The latter Superman and her two sisters, Samson and Sea Giant, would serve through the Cold War.