Stories from the S.S. Mount Whitney – Last livestock run, January 1947

Little did the 80 seagoing cowboys of the S.S. Mount Whitney’s final livestock trip in January 1947 know their expected six-week trip to Poland and back would keep them away from home for nearly four months!

The seagoing cowboy crew of the S.S. Mount Whitney’s last livestock run. Photo courtesy of Wesley Miller.

The crew included eleven ministers who wrote the report “Horses for Humanity” of this eventful voyage. Most of the crew received their call to report to Newport News, Virginia, January 6 and traveled in speedily from as far away as Minnesota and Nebraska – only to have to wait to depart until the wee hours of January 25 due to a shortage of hay.

The S.S. Mount Whitney awaits sailing at Newport News, Virginia, January 1947. Photo: Wesley Miller & Wilbert Zahl collection, used by permission.

The ship carried 1,462 horses, including a matched pair of registered Belgians to be given to the University of Warsaw, and 40 heifers donated to the Heifer Project by the Methodist Church for their church members in Poland. The cowboys had smooth sailing the first six days out until the ship ran into a fierce storm. For one 24-hour period, the Mount Whitney, which had looked immense in Newport News, tossed around like a cork on the vast churning sea making no mileage at all.

Not a safe time to be out on deck aboard the S.S. Mount Whitney, January 1947. Photo by Wesley Miller.

“Most of us had to go out on the upper deck to work with the horses there,” Ray Finke wrote home. “The sea sure was mad. Waves 50 to 60 feet high. When we would look ahead, it looked like water would go 3 feet over us, but the boat would always go over most of it.”

“The wind and the waves battered the forward stalls to pieces,” Melvin Witmer reported. “Trying to save the horses three of the men were almost swept overboard. One’s wristwatch was torn off and his leg gashed. Captain Shigley tried his best to spare the horses as much punishment as possible. We heard later that he did not sleep at all during those three days.”

Remains of the ocean’s wrath on Mount Whitney’s horse stalls, January 1947. Photo by Wesley Miller.

Twenty of the horses got washed overboard and many others weakened. UNRRA reports a loss of 98 horses on the trip, 6.7 percent. All four of the ship’s veterinarians and most of the cowboys got seasick during the storm. Wilbert Zahl notes in his memoir that as one of the few who didn’t get sick, “it fell on me, having come from a farm and knowing something about caring for cows and horses, to administer pills, etc., for the sick horses. . . . Shooting pills down a horse’s throat with a pill gun is not the most pleasant job. If the horse coughs as often they do, you get a lot of blubbery saliva sprayed into your face.”

Mount Whitney’s seagoing cowboy bunkroom housed 80 men in double bunks. Photo by Wesley Miller.

The storm also created a mess in the cowboys’ bunk room when their gear got tossed about. “Imagine 80 guys’ stuff all mixed up,” Finke said. “I found my shoes and suitcase over on opposite side of bunk room under another guy’s bunk. Would like to have a picture of us hunting for things and everyone on hands and knees.”

The Mount Whitney made good time after that, going up around Scotland and the northern tip of Denmark into the Kattegatt strait between Denmark and Sweden. The ship’s progress slowed, however, as she proceeded through the strait. “We who worked in the holds down below began to hear the ominous sound of heavy ice stubbornly disrupting our passage,” Witmer said.

Ice floating in the Kattegatt strait near Copenhagen, Denmark, January 1947. Photo: Wesley Miller & Wilbert Zahl collection, used by permission.

“Ice became heavier as we went south until we reached Malmö, Sweden, where we were forced to join a convoy led by an ice breaker which led us through to the Baltic Sea. The Baltic itself was clear but the ice was thick enough off Gdynia to force us to go on to Nowy Port, where we docked Thursday evening, February 7.” A grateful cowboy crew had arrived safely in Poland.

The Seagoing Cowboys of the Occidental Victory Spend Advent in Limbo

Norman Weber in 2006 in his home in Ontario, Canada, with memorabilia from his 1946 trip on the SS Occidental Victory to deliver horses to Poland. Photo: Peggy Reiff Miller

In my last post, we made the acquaintance of Norman Weber and John Wesley Clay, seagoing cowboys on the SS Occidental Victory in 1946. Their ship hit a rock before Thanksgiving off the coast of Finland, tearing open two oil tanks. The vessel was able to make it to Stockholm with its damaged bottom, but the dry docks there were unable to handle the repairs. On Thanksgiving Day, the ship left Sweden and made its way slowly and safely to and through the Kiel Canal, across the rough waters of the North Sea, and into the Weser River to Bremerhaven, Germany.

The Advent season between Thanksgiving and Christmas is often seen as a time of waiting, and that is precisely what these cowboys of the Occidental Victory had to do in Germany. Their ship sat in port for over two weeks before pulling into dry dock where she was to stay until the next August. Longing to be home for Christmas, Weber says,

Norman Weber and John Wesley Clay wait aboard the SS Occidental Victory in December 1946 for a way home. Courtesy of Norman Weber

“All the seamen except a skeleton crew were put onto other ships. But it soon became quite evident that no one cared much about the cowboys.” So he and “Pop,” as he called Mr. Clay, decided they needed to take matters into their own hands.

“One cold day,” Weber says, “we walked to a bombed out Railway station. We managed to crowd into an already full train and for three cold hours traveled the 35 miles to Bremen. There we boarded a street car, and somehow got around the rubble of what was once a lovely seaport.” They found their way to the UNRRA office where calls were made to Washington, D.C. After several days of anxious waiting, a ship was found to take the cowboys home.

Norm Weber with two of the German children befriended by the Occidental Victory cowboys who fed them on the ship. Courtesy of Norman Weber

In the meantime, young Weber, a German-speaking Mennonite, and the elder John Wesley Clay explored the devastated cities of Bremerhaven and Bremen, making friends along the way. On December 15, the third Sunday of Advent, Clay and three other cowboys (Weber was sick and couldn’t go) attended services of a Methodist church in Bremerhaven. With their church building in ruins, the members met in one of their homes.

The remains of the Methodist Church in Bremerhaven, Germany, December 1946. Courtesy of Norman Weber

 

 

Clay notes in his trip account,

Before the war the church had more than three hundred members, but there were only fifteen present. A lay preacher held the services. It was the most depressing religious service I have ever attended. The hopeless expression on the faces of the people was more like a funeral service than a regular Sunday morning service. It was bitter cold outside, and the snow was falling thick and fast, and there was no heat in the building. The elderly woman who played the organ could hardly do so with her cold fingers. The lay preacher had lost his wife and children in the air raid. Many members had lost their lives, and many more their homes.

We met one Sunday school teacher who has 25 little children in her class. We gave her twenty-five chocolate bars for their Christmas, which overjoyed her. American bombers had destroyed their church and city. Now we were giving them chocolate bars for their children. We had a feeling more of pain than of joy.

Oh, the horrors of war! May the good Lord spare us from ever seeing its like again.

Courtesy of Norman Weber

A fitting prayer for this Advent season.

Next post: Cowboys at Christmas