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The Southern Districts is a long discarded mystery of the Triangle. I, too, paid little attention to the case and assumed as others that the vessel was lost in heavy December gales off the Carolinas. Nevertheless, I had requested (around 1992) the Coast Guard report, encountering the common reply: “it has been destroyed,” as the Coast Guard habitually claims for reports older than 25 years.
Having taken advantage of the WWW, the Coast Guard has uploaded several of it most interesting reports. Not surprisingly, the Southern Districts is one of them. The report is still easily accessed.
This report reveals several errors of omission in the popular accounts, especially those used to dismiss the incident as of little curiosity. It is now possible to set the record straight, though this may move the vessel back into the realms of mystery.
On December 2, 1954, the converted LST (landing ship tank) Southern Districts left Port Sulphur, Louisiana, in cargo of bulk sulphur headed for Bucksport, Maine. She was last seen off Jupiter Inlet, Florida (about 80 miles north of Miami), heading northward to her destination. This sighting was by the s.s. Gulf Keys, which reported it overtook her at about 1:30 that afternoon, and lost site of her around 2 pm. She reported the vessel was not in difficulty.
At 1:50 p.m. the Southern Districts sent a routine message to her owners, reporting all well. This was picked up by W.O.E.RCA, which is Radio Lantana, Florida, just north of Miami. After that, nothing as ever heard from the vessel. She was supposed to report to her owners 48 to 72 hours before arriving port. By the 9th, concern was raised for her and eventually a full scale search was mounted.
Like in the case of the Marine Sulphur Queen this turned up absolutely nothing. A gale was blowing off the Atlantic at the time, worse (as usual) around the Carolinas where she would presumably have been the next day. It was assumed the vessel vanished between her last sighting at 2 pm on the 5th and 6 pm on the 6th. This time period was based on the fact a message was sent to a crewman aboard ship at that time, but it was never acknowledged. (The same method was used to give a rough location and time estimate for when the Marine Sulphur Queen vanished.
So far, there is nothing unusual. Yet as with disappearances in the Triangle, as opposed to other seas, elements of the unexplained popped up.
As in the case of Marine Sulphur Queen, long after the search was over flotsam was sighted. On January 2, 1955, the merchant vessel s.s. Tullahoma was in the Gulf Stream, just south of Key West. There was an object 30 feet off the bow. The captain examined it through his binoculars. It was a white ring life buoy. On it was stenciled in black block letters: “Southern Districts.”
This discovery was published at the time, and it caused a lot of mystery since this life ring was found about 200 miles south of the vessel’s last presumed position off Jupiter Inlet. The Southern Districts, of course, had been heading north to her destination. The Gulf Stream flows its fastest along this area, also heading north. Therefore it was impossible for the life ring to have floated south against the current.
In its opinion, the Coast Guard declared: “That the life ring sighted off Sand Key [sic], Florida, by observers on the s.s. TULLAHOMA could have possibly been from the wreckage of the SOUTHERN DISTRICTS. However, when considering that the SOUTHERN DISTRICTS was sighted as far north as Jupiter Inlet on 5 December; the northerly flow of the Gulf Stream, and the damaged condition of the life ring, it is more likely that the life ring was discarded by the vessel prior to entering the straits of Florida.”
Google map marked by me illustrating the conundrum.
More regard should be given for the first sentence than the Coast Guard investigator was by polity allowed to give it, for the discovery of the life ring buoy does not stand alone.
Although the discovery of the life ring was mentioned publicly by the press back then, the rediscovered report makes it clear that more than this life ring buoy was sighted. “About five minutes later, a gray life preserver with no markings visible and a 2”x8” plank about 10 feet long with slats attached were sighted. The plank appeared to be part of a gangway ramp.” A few pieces of debris only, curiously grouped. Had this been found off the Carolinas during the search, it clearly would have been considered a debris field.
Several questions arise, just like in the tardy discovery of debris in the case of MSQ. Debris was found where it should not have been. Did the vessel turn around and head south in some bizarre navigational mistake? Was it pirated? Had the Gulf Keys misidentified the vessel she passed and it was not the Southern Districts? (The third officer of the USS Anacostia also sighted a heavily laden LST on the 7th, but did not state the position. This was after the Southern Districts must have vanished.) Many LSTs were at sea, all certified for coastline routes.
If the Southern Districts was lost while approaching the Keys earlier, it could explain the debris being found south off Key West. The Southern Districts sent a routine report on the afternoon of the 5th, which was received by W.O.E.. But the report does not clarify if the vessel indicated her position. Key points that would seem relevant are not touched on in the report.
The disappearance of the Southern Districts suffers from guilt by association. Her sister vessel went down with startling suddenness. I turn to Captain John Waters’ Rescue at Sea (Van Nostrand, 1966) for the account:
. . .Only two years before, the Southern Isles, a sister ship, had gone down under similar conditions; and, but for an alert ship’s lookout, would have been among the missing rather than those sunk from known cause.
At 0340 on the morning of 5 October 1951, the seas 400 miles east of Jacksonville, Florida, were rough, due to a hurricane off Cape Hatteras. The Third Mate on the bridge of the s.s. Charlotte Lykes had for some time been watching a light about four miles ahead, when suddenly it went out. About thirty minutes later, as they passed the spot where the light was last seen, the men on the Charlotte Lykes saw a small lighted ring buoy in the water, and heard shouts for help in the darkness. In the next two hours, they picked up seven survivors. They were from the Southern Isles, which had been proceeding from Puerto Rico to Chester, Pennsylvania, with a cargo of iron ore. In the early morning darkness, she had broken in two without warning and went down so rapidly that no boats could be launched or a distress call made. Many of the sleeping crew found themselves in the water without clothing or life jackets. Of the 23 crewmen, only seven were rescued, and one of these died soon afterward. But for the alert mate on the Lykes freighter, none would have survived.
At the time the Charlotte Lykes broadcast the sighting message, I was at Naval Air station Jacksonville, with two PBM’s that had been evacuated from Elizabeth City ahead of the hurricane. We were aroused by the Air Station OOD, and at 0630 took off and climbed to 11,000 feet enroute to the disaster scene. Lieutenant Jim Swanson followed five minutes behind in the second plane. When we picked up the Lykes on radar, we let down, breaking out of the storm clouds at 800 feet.
Hour after hour we searched at altitudes of less than 500 feet over the big 20-foot swells, but only bodies and bits of debris were sighted. Shortly after noon, I sighted a naked body, and dropped a smoke float as I wrapped the plane up in a tight turn to pass over again. I had also sighted something else— a huge 15-foot shark only a few feet from the body. On the second pass, the shark was tugging the corpse around, and on the third pass, two sharks were fighting over it. Two minutes later, nothing remained.
Only a hundred yards away was another body, fully clothed and wearing an orange life jacket. It was not molested. Only a year before, we had been at this part of the ocean when an unclothed survivor of an aircraft ditching was killed by a shark. I firmly resolved to keep my clothes on should I ever be unfortunate enough to be adrift in shark infested waters.
The Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation expressed the opinion the Southern Isles was overloaded and was carrying a cargo too dense for a vessel of her type. They also felt that her hull, weakened as a result of the loading during this and previous voyages, had failed while being driven at excessive speeds in the heavy seas. As a result, other vessels of this class were restricted as to type of cargo carried, and the strengthening of the hull was required. The steps taken, however, were not sufficient to save the Southern Districts. Following the second disaster, the Coast Guard withdrew the certification for this type of vessel to carry cargo on ocean or coastwise routes.
Her hull had been reenforced. She was carrying a less dense cargo. What truly happened to the Southern Districts, and where?
The Coast Guard merely assumed the life ring had been thrown over as useless because, as noted by the captain of the Tullahoma, it was torn on top. However, this also could have been done by a shark thrashing for a crewman in it. Why was that not considered? Well, for the simple fact that the vessel was last seen north of here and nothing from her could have floated south contrary to the current. This seems logical. It is, at least, acceptable. Yet the ring buoy was not alone.
It seems easiest to believe the vessel had vanished along the Florida coast or the Carolinas, after the 5th. But how did a debris field mysteriously fly south to be found 200 miles behind her last position? Was it a cyclone— a deadly waterspout that destroyed her?
The alternative explanation for the debris only raises a great irony: that out of all the potential debris that should have come from a wrecked vessel off the Carolinas, nothing is found, yet by chance a lone discarded life ring carelessly thrown off the vessel near the Keys is miraculously found, just floating coincidentally along with other debris from “some ship,” like a shattered gangplank and a gray life jacket.
In other seas there is no great mystery to the discovery of debris. But in the Triangle when something is finally discovered, why is it always in the wrong place?
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