This was the SS Northwestern moored in Seward. By Alaska Railroad Alaska Railroad Tour Lantern Slide Collection, 1923.
The SS Northwestern was launched on November 28, 1889, by the Delaware River Iron, Shipbuilding and Engine Works of Chester, Pennsylvania, under the name of the SS Orizaba and was an iron-hulled combined passenger/freighter ship that was powered by a coal-fired steam-driven engine and a four-bladed screw propeller. The first owner of the Orizaba was the Ward Line (also known as the New York and Cuba Steamship Company), and she sailed for nine years carrying passengers between New York, Mexico, and Cuba. During this period the United States became involved in the Spanish-American War, and as a result the Orizaba was chartered by the U.S. Army and became a U.S. Army transport.
After the war the Orizaba returned to the Ward Line and continued her runs into South and Central America. One of these runs was a trip to Colon, Panama, in early 1906 as a banana freighter for the Panama Railroad. In March 1906 she changed ownership to the Northwestern Steamship Company, and that summer sailed around the southern tip of South America to Seattle. After arriving in Seattle on June 1 she then went on her first voyage to Nome, which was completed on June 25, 1906. That August the SS Orizaba was renamed the SS Northwestern.
Ownership of the Northwestern was transferred to her final owner, the Alaska Steamship Company, in January 1908. She then sailed the waters of Alaska as a combined passenger/freighter for the next 34 years. Typical services (other than for passengers) that she supplied were:
1. Laying telegraph cables from Unalaska to St. Michael.
2. Carrying copper from Kennecott
3. Ferrying gold from Nome
4. Carrying livestock
5. Transporting mail
There were few navigation aids such as buoys or lights that were available in Alaska's waters in the early 1900s, plus the Northwestern had a single screw propeller and a narrow rudder, which (according to historian Bob DeArmond) made her hard to maneuver. As a result, she was involved in 18 accidents and one smallpox quarantine. The Northwestern's final voyage under the Alaska Steamship Company ended in October 1937.
World War II started in September 1939 with the German invasion of Poland.
In August 1940 the Northwestern was taken to the Lake Union Dry Dock Company in Seattle, where she was converted into a floating barracks, mess hall and power plant. Then, at the beginning of September 1940, she was sent under her own power to the Naval Operating Base at Dutch Harbor, Alaska.
The United States' entry into World War II began on December 7, 1941, when the Empire of Japan bombed U.S. Naval installations at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
The Aleutian Campaign in Alaska began on June 3, 1942, when four bombers and 15 fighters attacked Dutch Harbor. On June 4, a second attack occurred with a squadron of nine Japanese Val dive bombers led by Lieutenant Zenji Abe (who had bombed the USS Arizona in the Pearl Harbor attack) attempted to bomb the seaplane tender SS Gillis and the transport President Fillmore. They were driven off by intense anti-aircraft fire and transferred to secondary targets. One of which was the Northwestern. Two of the Japanese VALS targeted the ship. Of the two bombs that were dropped, one missed and the other scored a direct hit. As a result, the ship's fuel ignited and fire swept across the ship. The residents onboard were safely evacuated, even though one lamented the loss of the pork chops he never got to eat for lunch. Even though the ship burned for three days, fire crews managed to save the ship's boilers and power plant, and within a week she was able to provide heat, steam and electricity to the naval base until a new, fortified, power plant was installed that September.
Once the new power plant was installed and operational the Northwestern was made seaworthy enough by the Seabees to survive a tow to Seattle, then piled full of scrap metal, a lot of which was welded to her hull in order to help with stability in heavy seas, then-in the fall of 1943-towed to Captains Bay on Unalaska Island to await a tow to the south. And there she waited.
Navy records affirm that the Northwestern was towed to Seattle in 1944, where she yielded 2,700 tons of scrap metal. This was confirmed in 1959 by Alaska Steamship Company officials, who also stated that the ship had been scrapped in Seattle. However, local Unalaska citizens had always believed that the Northwestern was still aground in Captains Bay. In the 1970s local divers explored the Captains Bay wreck and brought back parts that indicated they were part of the ship. In July 1984 historian Austen D. Hemion identified the bow of the wreck as the Northwestern. In 1986 a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers survey team officially confirmed the wreck as the Northwestern when they matched pictures of the ship's wartime bomb damage against the wreck's hull and verified that the wreck still contained a wartime cargo of scrap metal. The engineers also identified faint lettering on the bow of the wreck that says "Northwestern"
So, there she waits-still.
George Darrow is a historian and newsletter editor for the Alaska Veterans Museum. He is retired from the Anchorage Veterans Administration and the USAF where he served as an enlisted NCO as a communications specialist and a security policeman. He graduated from UAA in history and music.
